Closed Until Noticed

At the beginning of 2020, I began photographing and abstracting my self-care routines, and I quickly noticed how these routines changed over the course of the year. I spent less time in my room and more on the computer. The overbearing shadows of the burglar bars cast across my bed became less present in my work—and their absence somehow felt like a grievance. I began photographing them obsessively, almost like a paparazzo. As my focus shifted toward my window, the “2000-year-old space problem” came to mind—a concept addressing the challenges of representing the window as both an everyday object and a recurring motif.

The window carries significant implications as a boundary between the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’ world. During a time when “looking through” became one of the few sources of entertainment during the pandemic, it raised questions about ethics: Where do we look? What happens if we look at our neighbors for entertainment? And what if they look at us?

These photographs explore the narrative experience of seeing and the temptation of looking through still images. I aim to place the viewer in moments of discomfort or curiosity, allowing these narratives to unfold. Reflections, shapes, and patterns in the abstractions invite the viewer to question whether the images were taken inside, outside, or digitally manipulated. The omnipresence of the window is designed to distract, attract, and abstract the viewer’s relationship with the images, fostering a sense of mystery and engagement.