Junny Yeung & Dzelde Mierkalne

Home: We can be alone together

2022

“One shouldn’t sit down to a good meal alone, spend a wakeful night or travel without company. Or be one’s own sole counsellor. Even the humblest travelling companion brings a blessing.”

As the wheels of the train start spinning, we sometimes crave the solitude of the empty berth, where our thoughts can escape through the transparent window, drifting rather than becoming part of the landscape. Rarely are we allowed to indulge in this calming loneliness, as this person or that one enters, and refuses to budge. Staying out of each other’s way, in shadowy confines that do not touch, it seems that the window is pressed up close against the face, capturing the impressions of fear, suspicion and estrangement.

It may not at first grip you tightly, but a feeling of stress gives way to anxiety, blowing like a cloud of cool, sad cigarette smoke. Our eyes survey the flow of the world from behind the glass, sizing up the impending gloom as if unsure of the path before us, uncertain of the direction of these tracks. What in this room can provide even the slimmest thread of intrigue, a clue of how an added function might destruct the feeling of shelter? When we are pushed to change our habits, are we able to adapt as fast as it is necessary? Even creating the replica of the home environment is a statement, and bringing oddities about “normalities” or just small things which create homes leaves you wondering what makes houses into homes.