The Other Side of the Window
Indie Film
The other side of the window is a work that uses the window as a narrative container for shared memories of connection and disconnection during the Great Quarantine. In a video offering two different perspectives of a single window, pandemic stories are told through visualizations representing the variance between the inside and the outside world. This project aims to explore the relationship between individuals, groups, and space during quarantine in the COVID-19 pandemic.
IMPETUS
The starting point of this project is from my daily experience during quarantine. During the pandemic, I was quarantined in my apartment in New York for months. The only scene I could see was my room and the windows of my neighbors. Looking at the windows made me think about what it would be like of my neighbor's isolated life and how the pandemic has affected our world.
The starting point of this project is from my daily experience during quarantine. During the pandemic, I was quarantined in my apartment in New York for months. The only scene I could see was my room and the windows of my neighbors. Looking at the windows made me think about what it would be like of my neighbor's isolated life and how the pandemic has affected our world.
Covid-19 has profoundly changed our lives and the relationships between the inner world and the outer world. In most countries, lockdown and quarantine are important policies to flatten the curve for COVID-19. So whether it's for health reasons or because of policies that force us to quarantine at home, we're staying indoors a lot more than we used to. This change leads to the functional transformation of home. People have to do many activities in their rooms which are done outdoors before the quarantine. As a result, our home takes on more of the functions of the site. Things like going to an office for work, a gym for fitness, a bar for socializing are now done at home. Therefore, "home" has to assume more of the functions of other sites. At the same time, some interior spaces, which only have a single function, also have to take such a role. For example, a hotel room for resting has become a temporary "home" or "jail" during the quarantine for those unfortunate travelers.
At the same time, the quarantine has changed our interaction and relationship with others and ourselves. Online communication replaces daily physical contact: we take classes, work, and communicate online. Through this challenging time, we have witnessed that people try to inspire each other by this unusual form of communication: In the physical world, people play music, communicate with their neighbors, and clap for healthcare workers through their windows, while in the digital world, people have online concerts on Zoom and social media. However, we also found there are many disconnections. The pandemic and isolation have exacerbated pre-existing problems -- such as the spread of misinformation, the rise of racial discrimination, and a surge in suicide rates due to mental health crises.
PROCESS
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