The project Mate is a personal exploration into relationships. The main focus of this project was on romantic couples, yet focusing not on the words exchanged between couples, but instead the non-verbal actions displayed by the body that relates our inner feelings. As relationships are never stable and the pairing of two people are not always synchronised this was explored through the game of chess. Chess is based on strategy and players calculate possible moves, which are based on intuition and memory and has the fundamental image of two people facing each other, as though in battle, this being a representation of the problems faced by couples. Chess was also chosen, as it is a board game I grew up with, as my father is an avid chess player. This project was explored through filming real life couples playing chess against each other, yet the chess board is out of frame, ignored as instead we focus on the couple's interactions and body language.