A voice can only break a glass that already has a crack in it
An exhibition in digestivo, Rotterdam
July 2020
Few years ago I played a housekeeper in a videogame which took place within the walls of a modernist house in a fictional city. The house was situated on a top of a hill with a view over the city through it’s enormous windows. During the day time it’s presence entered the room with the sound of traffic, and in the evening the light from the skyscrapers would lit up the rooms….
In 17th century Holland, public space entered through doors and windows of houses as their walls were only believed to mimic the town’s walls but not represent domesti-city. Those border zones between the external world and the interior were mainly occupied by housewives and working women who therefore could participate in the town’s life while attending to work around the house…
A century later voices that trespassed through windows and doors started to be viewed as a threat to the house owner’s status. To protect that status, windows were elevated, doors were closed and housewives moved further inside. This mindset lead to the introduction of window tax, where the windows that shrank in size as well as layers of curtains covering up the remains of them; permanently closing the communication space between the working women and the external world…..
pictures @graysc.de
