BLANK SPACE

 

BLANK SPACE

 

seminar essay

 

When Eva saw a first draft of the project, the first thing she said was “Why black and white? I am not black and white”. She is a very exuberant person indeed– but the space she inhabits at the moment is not her either. She longs to move out from her student residence, find an apartment of her own which she could shape and mould to resemble her personality. That is why black and white– to symbolise the feel of a place which lacks of her.

After visiting Eva’s apartment, what stuck with me was that uncanny feeling of a blank space– from the intensely white color of the walls to the little furniture she had. When moving from Spain, Eva attached herself to that idea of a new start. That meant bringing only a few belongings and none of the post-its her friends and herself left on her room’s wall, so that new one could be written.

She told me of an orange wall back in Spain, which she thought was full of life, warmth and love. As our discussion went on, it became clear to me that the orange wall was something of a symbol to her– this lead to a discussion about the concept and notion of home– what it meant to her and how she approached it. The following movie contains pieces of audio from our conversation which particularly hit me. The word home is associated to a color– orange, naturally, for the wall, but also for the feelings associated to it– warmth, optimism, creativity. It is mainly composed of diptychs, evoking both the immaterial space and the way Eva moves and lives through it. Each time, it is a still image and a moving piece of video, as I tried to recreate the stillness I felt in that place. I wanted to explore the relationship Eva has to the few belongings she brought with her, and what it meant to recreate a home. These diptychs are surrounded by a vast white space to symbolize the emptiness and negative space of her apartment.

Throughout the video, however, the color white progressively evolves to symbolize not only emptiness but more of the idea of a place to fill– of a home to fill. White means walls that can be painted and spaces that can be transformed. White becomes the home she longs for, and hopes to find.

A modelization of the negative space of her apartment accompanies the video.

 

 

documentation

 

 

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