What Makes a Man?
1 The Question
Essentially Man (EM) began with a question: What does it mean to be a man? After travelling through more than a hundred countries, I became interested in how differently men lived, what they thought about being men and how much of that varied between individuals, cultures and generations.
2 My Dad
My dad was part of that curiosity. Growing up in Australia, I knew him as a strong but reserved man who rarely spoke about himself. Years later, interviewing him for EM showed me how much of his life I had never thought to ask about: his friendships, rugby years, work, family and the experiences that had shaped him.
3 Men Around the World
Travel connected me with men whose lives were different from mine and from one another. I met men through work, sport, villages and chance encounters. The more men I spoke with, the less interested I became in finding a universal answer to masculinity. The differences were more interesting.
4 Essentially Man
EM grew from that curiosity. Through interviews, profiles, photography and field reporting, the project documents men and the worlds they inhabit: their work, relationships, health, sport, bodies, cultures, traditions and everyday lives, across different countries, communities, generations and ways of living.
5 Let Men Speak
EM is primarily observational, not interpretative. I may arrive with questions and subjects I want to explore but not with an answer that the man is expected to provide. Men can agree, disagree, contradict one another or decide that a question about masculinity isn't particularly important to them.
6 A Growing Record
The aim is to build a broad and growing record of men's lives across countries, cultures, occupations, ages and experiences. Some stories are extraordinary. Others are ordinary. Some may challenge expectations or lead somewhere entirely unexpected. Both belong here. The common thread is simple: men speak for themselves.
charting the course
The Mission
Essentially Man (EM) documents the lives and experiences of men around the world. Its mission is to create a growing record of men's voices through interviews, profiles, photography and firsthand reporting, covering subjects from work, health and relationships to sport, bodies, culture and tradition.
EM begins with curiosity rather than a predetermined idea of what men or masculinity should be. The aim is to listen, observe and give individual men room to describe themselves and their experiences in their own words.
Founder's Note
Hi, I'm Ben.
I've spent much of my adult life travelling, have lived in several different countries and have now visited more than 100. Somewhere along the way, I became increasingly curious about the men I was meeting: how they lived, what mattered to them, the worlds they inhabited and what they thought about being men.
Essentially Man (EM) originally grew from my own questions about masculinity. I thought perhaps interviewing enough men would lead me towards some larger answer about what it means to be a man. Instead, I've become more interested in the men themselves.
That's what EM is now about.
I want to meet men whose lives I find interesting and document something of them properly. That might mean sitting down for a long interview, spending time in someone's workplace, following an athlete through his sporting world, documenting a tradition, taking photographs or simply listening when a conversation goes somewhere I hadn't expected.
I still have questions. I just don't need all the men I meet to give me the same answer.
Ben
Essentially Man / Creator and Curator
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