How Can Solastalgia Restore a Lost Sense of Belonging to the Image? An autotheoretical attempt to return to a documentary practice and recover a filmic voice

Solastalgia is a neologism created by the Australian environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht to designate the pain or sadness provoked by the loss of solace and the subsequent yearning for a lost sense of belonging to a place that could be called ‘home'. In clinical psychology, Albrecht first used the term to associate this feeling of distress, specifically with environmental change (2005).

Since then, researchers, artists, musicians, writers, and poets have applied it, reviving the interest in the relationship between the environment and human experiences (Beinart, 2016), and while their experiences of place may differ, they all respond to specific environmental destruction (PCC, 2017). Effectively, solastalgia (only) exists when recognising that a place of significance is under assault (Lloyd, 2016).

In my research, I propose to borrow the term solastalgia from environmental philosophy and clinical psychology and use it to rethink the contemporary relationship with the documentary image. What if the documentary film image were considered as ‘that' place of significance or ‘home?' What if, as a result, creating an image could be understood as an act of belonging to that image? What if that relationship of belonging is under assault?

In times when the connection between images and things has become questionable (Steyerl, 2007), unreliable, overwhelming (Comolli, 2004), and powerless (Didi- Huberman, 2009, 2012), the possibility of creating can become obstructed, and the emergence of the poetic voice can become fragile.

Then, the question arises: facing this broken bond with image-making, is it possible to restore it, recover the voice and return to creation?

Emerging in response to this question, my practice is the film-performance (reconceptualised as a spoken film) called Lovesong. A non-existent film in progress, which explores the loss of my sense of belonging to a series of images I filmed in the past. By doing so, this practice-based PhD aims to argue how drawing solastalgia to documentary practice can - despite all (Didi-Huberman, 2003)- activate a filmic voice.

I analyse this creative practice through autotheory (Fournier, 2021) so that among notes and memories that follow and give an account of the iterations of the research process, a theoretical framework emerges. I invoke various textual forms, including an account of my working process, the evocation of personal experience (emotional and reflective), the inclusion of fragments of the text and images from the film, quotations and materials from other filmmakers and artists (writers, poets, painters). This is contextualised with theoretical references to authors such as Barthes, Comolli, Bellour, Bazin, and Mulvey, among others and a practice review exploring the potentialities and limits of film- performance.

This research contributes to new knowledge by introducing the clinical term solastalgia as a valid concept to describe a wounded relationship with the documentary film image and consequently arguing how it paradoxically can reactivate documentary practice, poetically and politically.