I always thought survival meant things would get better.
It doesn’t.
You just find new ways to carry the weight.

These photographs are what happens after the dust settles.
Not the pretty kind of ruin.
Not the kind that fits inside neat headlines or gallery frames.

This is what gets left behind when hope moves out and leaves the lights on.

These places deserved someone to remember them.
So that’s what I did, with my friends Luke and Maddie.

Because maybe survival isn’t about winning.
Maybe it’s about refusing to disappear.

Even if nobody’s watching.
Even if nobody cares.

Especially then.

— Emily Pratt Slatin