Scenario for photograph no. 10
by Jazmin Llana
What happens when private space intrudes into public space? Is it possible that the most private space one can have is actually in public? What constitutes public space? Is not public space really an infinity of private spaces crammed together but jealously or fiercely guarded?
Day One.
This is the beginning. I am inside the sleeping bag. It is early morning and the space is empty except for me. Soon people will be arriving. This is a busy passageway and there is usually a continuous flow of people passing by and sometimes they stop to chat or smoke or just be by themselves. Will any of them notice anything unusual such as the sleeping bag? Will any of them take action? Approach the bag? Report it to the authorities? If they do approach the bag and see me, what will they say to me? I have a story to tell. Will anyone care to ask? Will anyone listen?
Day Two
It is midmorning. By this time I expect there would be people around or nearby, passing by or chatting or just going about their business. I will arrive with the sleeping bag and a rucksack. I will position the bag and start getting things out of the rucksack: a pair of jeans and some shirts that got wet by the rain, which I will hang on the railing; several books, a writing pad and pen, my laptop—I will sit on the bag and start working with these things; a sandwich wrapped in foil and crisps and a large bottle of soda—I will eat as I work. Then I will brush my teeth on one corner, using water from a bottle. I will change my clothes for sleeping and ‘go to bed’. This is my space now, or for now. I have been ejected from my accommodation and have nowhere else to go. Will people mind? Will they talk to me? Will they call the authorities and arrest me for ‘disturbing the peace’? I have a story to tell. Will anyone listen?
Variations:
1.)The scenario is staged in a different location (but also a public space).
2.)The scenarios are played out by at least three people, two of whom ‘merge’ with the ‘public’ and stage reactions to the first who does the actions described above.
Note:
This is an ethnographic project inspired by Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gomez-Pena’s Undiscovered Amerindians, though on a totally different theme. In order to protect (or not intrude into) the participants’ privacy, they will remain anonymous and no recording will be taken that will expose people’s identities without their consent.
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