View of the backyard of a blue house with white trim, showing a sliding door, windows, and a small garden area. There are children playing and toys scattered on the concrete patio. A book titled "it makes a village" by Sara Stankovic is overlayed on the image.

About this photo project

I grew up in a web of support that involved relatives, neighbors, and friends who lived in physical proximity and shared life and resources. Growing up in a community was as normal and assumed to me as growing itself was.

Today, I live in a modern Western city, where a combination of individualistic culture, digital-era social shifts, and demands of mothering have left me feeling more isolated than ever. This experience I share with majority of mothers I come across. As I started paying more attention to this problem, I also noticed unique solutions to it. One of those is a group of friends who decided to live in a community - sharing backyards, meals, and a vision of a life in close community.

This project is an invitation to consider our own lives in relation to community and isolation; to ponder the decisions that brought us here, and reimagine choices that could lead us into creating our own villages.

Where is your village?

  • A person with blonde hair listening to a woman talking on the phone outside a window during daytime. The person is wearing a floral-patterned shirt and sitting near a stack of books, with a curtain partially covering the view.

    12 feet

    Liz lives in an intentional community made up of seven closest family friends who are in close physical proximity. Of those, five share the backyard.

  • People looking at a smartphone displaying a man in a blue hoodie, with a kitchen stove in the background.

    5580 miles

    I live in a house with a big backyard and a tall privacy fence, an attached garage, and neighbors who share no more than a passing “hello”.

How do you reach your friends?

  • Person in a floral robe opening a glass door to a backyard.

    Everyone in the group moved from a different state with no family in town. They met through mutual connections and committed to meeting every Wednesday to deepen the friendship.

  • A partially visible hand and foot of a child, a white plush horse toy, a red toy screwdriver, a small wooden toy or structure, a smartphone, and a colorful quilt on the floor.

    I moved across the globe to pursue higher education. Wherever I go - I thought - I am sure to find a new community in my environments.

Person showing the palms of both hands, with rings on the middle fingers, wearing a floral patterned long-sleeve shirt, standing indoors.

What do you bring when you go to your best friend’s house?

  • A minimalist white background with the word 'nothing' centered in quotation marks.
  • A typed list of items including wallet, phone, keys, half-eaten apple, two meals, water bottles, diapers, wet wipes, books for kids, toys, cheese stick, rain jackets, pants, shirts, underwear, socks, boots, hand sanitizer, cheese, spoons, cloth napkins, bib, backpack, dirty clothes bag, potty, banana teether, diaper balm, blanket, and a rotting pear.
Top-down view of various packed travel items on a wooden surface, including books, utensils, clothes, toiletries, snacks, and a person holding a peeled apple and car keys.
  • Multiple children and adults in a cozy living room, some children sit at a dining table while others stand or lean, engaging in conversation or eating, with warm lighting and home decor visible.

    Over the years, the friendships and desire to be in proximity grew. Initially, there were four couples who spent years actively looking for ways to live in community.

  • A person holding a smartphone displaying a video call with an older woman wearing glasses, inside a room with a gray wall.

    But as I was making good friends in my new city, our schedules and priorities kept shifting until it become hard to stay close. Today, my closest people can only be reached by a phone, or....

  • A child running in a backyard next to a blue two-story house during early evening. The yard has various toys, a covered grill, and outdoor furniture.

    They set out to live within “baby monitor” distance. In 2015 they bought three houses that were being built in place of a demolished one. The rest of families joined the community over the years through a combination of co-housing, renting, and homeownership.

  • View from inside a car showing the dashboard, rearview mirror, and windshield, with a person driving on a winding road surrounded by trees with autumn foliage.

    … a 40 min car drive. “We’ll still see each other,” we thought as we all prioritized proximity to work or better school districts or bigger yards over being close to each other.

A reflection of a person in a glass window, with a blue wooden house exterior and indoor kitchen visible through the window, and curtains hanging inside.

What is on your dream house wish list?

  1. Proximity to friends

  2. Good school district

  3. Old style house with hardwood floors

  4. Big backyard

  5. Desirable neighborhood

  1. Lots of natural light

  2. Space for family to visit

  3. Wood burning fireplace

  4. Attached garage

  5. Proximity to friends or family

Sunlight casting shadows of a monstera plant's leaves on a wall with framed photographs.
  • A cozy family gathering in a living room with children and adults, some sitting on chairs and sofa, others walking around, with a kitchen visible in the background.

    Every Tuesday, the families have dinner together, rotating hosts. Everybody brings their own bowls and either takes a portion to-go or eats together. The house was full of people eating and chatting, most not even close to the dining table. It felt like a true family get-together.

  • Child sitting in a high chair at a wooden dining table with a plate of food, watching a smartphone on a stand, with a vase of flowers and coffee mug on the table.

    With both my husband and I living far from our homes of origin, meals with extended family, although a regular occurrence at our house, are only seldom in person. Multi-family dinners only happen for holidays.

A decade ago, an average American spent over six hours a week with friends.

Today, it’s less than two hours.

  • A group of five people, two women and three men, are gathered around a kitchen island, laughing and enjoying a meal together.

    In addition to Tuesday night dinners, Liz still meets with the core four families every Wednesday, a years-long tradition. Saturday nights are moms-only and dads-only nights out. Liz has 28 planned hours with closest friends every month. She at least sees them in passing every single day.

  • A screenshot of a text message conversation discussing plans for Thursday and possibly next week.

    Despite our best efforts to be each other's community, living far from our friends has made it hard to share lives in more meaningful and consistent ways. I see my closest friends every three weeks.

About 67% of Americans report that they lack the community support they need in order to thrive.

Health impact of isolation is equal to or greater than diabetes, obesity, or smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

  • A woman in a white hoodie and blue sneakers does a forward bend stretch on a concrete surface outdoors, with gym socks and green dumbbells nearby. Several other people, dressed in athletic wear, are seen in the background near a building with blue siding and small exercise equipment on the ground.

    On Wednesdays and Fridays, the backyard becomes an outdoor gym with an open invitation for any moms who want to join. The personal trainer, who is a part of the community, leads the group into interactive exercises where building relationships seems equally important as building the muscles.

  • A magnetic note on a fridge with instructions written in green marker, and various paper cutouts of Christmas stockings and related decorations attached to the fridge.

    My in-home physical therapist left a friendly reminder on the fridge to do my exercises - daily. Over a month later, I have yet to do a single rep.

  • Person holding a stand mixer outside of a house, near a potted plant and a small table.

    Sharing resources is another important value of this unique friend group. When Liz needs something - be it baking powder, kids Tylenol, or a mixer, she just walks over to one of her best friend’s houses and takes it. They have access to each other's houses even when no one is home to open the door.

  • A woman and a child playing with magnetic building tiles on a carpeted floor.

    With no community nearby, I find myself Googling things like “how to make bread without yeast,” making late-night runs for Tylenol, or checking if Amazon Prime can deliver diapers at dawn. Consumerism is the antidote to community.

A young girl looking at a photo or paper outside a window of a blue house, with a reflection of a chandelier and interior lighting visible inside.

How do your kids meet with their village?

  • A backyard patio with outdoor furniture, a wooden pergola, string lights, children playing, and various plants and trees.

    In a shared backyard, spontaneously?

  • Child sitting in dirt garden, holding gardening tools, with a smartphone on the ground showing a video call with an older man.

    On video calls and planned gatherings?

  • A collection of children's bicycles, a scooter, and toys stored outside next to a black wall. The bicycles are colorful with one in pink, another in red, and another in yellow. There is also a pink scooter and various children's toys and containers on the ground.

    This pile of kids’ bikes and scooters serves as a stark visual reminder of a life lived together. I imagine that any time a child grabs a bike, they are reminded that their life, like their bike, is intertwined with their closest friends.

  • Child wearing a yellow helmet and a striped green and navy shirt, riding a green and black bike with a phone attached to the handlebar, on a dirt path.

    Our neighborhood only has a few kids, and even those are rarely outside. We enjoy our frequent family bike rides in the neighborhood and on this particular day, we also took a family member with us for a virtual tour.

The image shows a lively household scene with adults and children. A woman holding a young child stands near a dining table, while another woman with a bun, dressed in a hoodie and a skirt, holds a cup near the staircase. Several children are engaged in various activities: one child walking down the stairs, another standing at the bottom, and others sitting or standing at the table. The kitchen area is visible in the background with white cabinets and hanging lights, creating a warm and busy atmosphere.
  • A woman with blonde hair looks at her phone while a man in a gray shirt holds the phone, showing a picture of a house with a brown roof and beige siding.

    As I observe this unique community, I realize that there is truly nothing radical about them. There is just a lot of intentionality and commitment to sharing lives. They are everyday people, living everyday lives, who stubbornly design togetherness into every corner of their space and every aspect of their lives.

  • A smartphone is propped against the base of a tree, showing a video call with a smiling woman. The surrounding area has dry leaves, grass, and some green plants, with a chain-link fence in the background.

    In my life, too, I see stubborn devotion to my most precious relationships, my village. I see commitment to each other; commitment to staying on the call even when it keeps cutting out, to answering a text even when received a few minutes too early in the morning, to going on a 30 min car drive just to see friends for an hour.
    I see the commitment, and now I also see an invitation.

This invitation isn’t to find a village…

but to make one.

Other sources:

Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation, Surgeon General Social Connection Advisory www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf. Accessed 18 Dec. 2024.

A big thank you to Liz Bohannon and the families of this community who allowed me to participate in and photograph their most personal and sacred moments together.

To learn more about Liz and her community, check out Liz’s podcast Plucking Up where she shares more about village building, entrepreneurship, https://www.lizbohannon.co/podcast

Sara Stanković Johnsović is a Serbian-American documentary photographer based in Portland, OR. She holds a BA in International Relations and an MBA. She is also a mom with a phone full of photos, yet very few of those actually show all the hard and fun and messy and beautiful ways she loves her children. This realization lead her to family documentary photography and capturing undirected, real life - full of magic and chaos.

Sara is passionate about sharing the stories that make us. See more of her work here.