If it is true that "We know the world through our body, and we know our body through the world."1 Then what does it mean to leave a space? What does it mean to leave an institution? What's left at all when we walk away from each other?
I've always experienced a growing sense of numbness. Maybe as a consequence of constantly moving with my family when I was a child, moving over and over. The first time I thought I realized that someone other than me actually exists, I had to move again. I had to walk away.
It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, oh lord. Like the song. But is that it? You know, like that other song. Think of the image as a subject, gazing back at you. What do you get after making eye contact? You turn your head, you walk away. If you're strong now, you can make it not to turn your head to look at them again. I hope you will think about Me, it may have said. Not really in a begging way, but it still wants to make sure to let you know it needs you. Its reflection in your eyes is what makes it whole. Our reflection in your eyes is what makes us whole. This place is a We. In "The Poetics of Space" Bachelard writes that "The places in which we have experienced daydreaming reconstitute themselves in a new daydream."2 Considering an event like an Exhibition, this idea feels almost utopian-to serve something able to stand out amidst the overwhelming flood of information, something that lingers even after you have turned your back on it. Do you mind giving this a shot? Feeling the Images shutting their eyes behind your back while you recede? What's left of it? What's left of us?
The feeling when you walk away.
1 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phänomenologie der Wahrnehmung, 1976 2 Gaston Bachelard, Die Poetik des Raumes, 1957