"Domestic: Home, Interiority, and Self (Untitled)" (2021)
When thinking about the space of home, interiority, and domesticity, the idea of shared space within that private space is something that is quite interesting. Whether it’s sharing a home with roommates or family, there’s always that aspect of sharing a space within a private place.
For this assignment, I was very much inspired by the “Kitchen Table Series” by Carrie Mae Weems. The focus is on a shared space within a private home, in her case the kitchen table, and in my case the couch in the living room. My series of photographs illustrates all the different things that happen on or around the couch in a living space such as this, throughout a typical day. I wanted to capture the natural environment that my roommates and I live in every day, so I wanted it to be as natural as possible.
The choice to make this collection black and white was inspired by Carrie Mae Weems’ series, but also, I wanted the viewer to focus less on the busy colors and clutter that inhabits this living space, and more on the figures themselves. How the base space stays the same, while everything in and around it changes. The choice to add a bit of grain to these images started out as purely a last-minute aesthetic choice, but after some thought and time with the photos, I really liked having that texture on these photos to create a sort of homey feeling. The same kind of feeling that one might get from looking through old home videos, or photos from years ago.
