Architectures of Intimacy

What’s in your bag?

On the train, I overhear a conversation between people who are sitting behind me. I automatically start to pay more attention, hoping to understand what they are talking about. The same happens when someone next to me on the bus is writing a text, as I catch a glimpse of the message. Are they writing to a lover, a friend or a family member, or is it a grocery list with the ingredients for tonight’s dinner? My curiosity is activated, and my imagination starts to wander: what kind of people are they, what do their lives look like?

Curiosity is part of human nature, as we naturally have an interest in other people’s stories and lives. Watching a video of a celebrity unpacking their bag in one of Vogue’s ‘In the Bag’ videos gives a sense of intimacy and sparks your imagination. Florence Pugh always carrying a tiny bottle of hot sauce in her purse, for example, offers an intimate glimpse that allows a small connection to form, which creates space to dream and imagine what she must be like.

This same magic can be found in the short film What Is In A Girl’s Handbag?, where Latvian artist Katrīna Neiburga asked women in club bathrooms in Riga what was in their handbag. This started the most unimaginable conversations, with women sharing the anecdote behind a talisman or mentioning they always carry a book by Kurt Vonnegut in case they get bored while clubbing.

Not only the contents of their bag can tell you a lot about strangers, but also their behaviour. In short film Lift by Marc Isaacs, filmed entirely in the lift of a London apartment building, a man seems uninterested in making conversation or sharing stories. However, the next time he’s in the lift he gives the director a banana in case he gets hungry, a meaningful gesture.

Heterotopia

French philosopher Michel Foucault elaborated on the philosophical and architectural notion of ‘heterotopia’, which touches on the intimacy and special atmosphere of these spaces. Heterotopia refers to a world within a world, a microcosm. It is a space that is both different from its surroundings and mirrors the world around it. A heterotopia is a space governed by its own rules and has a special means of entry, suggesting that we should move and think differently when we are in them.

Bathhouses and saunas are a classic heterotopia, holding different meanings within them. They are typically a space for rituals and purification, where the cleansing of the body becomes a cleansing of the mind, and simultaneously somewhere to reflect, relax and treat yourself. The documentary Smoke Sauna Sisterhood by Anna Hints gives an insight into a smoke sauna in Lithuania, showing it as a place of community and belonging, where women can share stories and find solace in this sheltered setting. The VR experience In the Mist by Tung-yen Chou gives another perspective on saunas, transporting you to a dream-like gay sauna. It highlights how, already since centuries, saunas and bathhouses have been spaces where queer people have been gathering, looking for intimacy and cruising.

The poetry of ceramic tiles

Spaces such as lifts and public bathrooms balance between public and private, making them unique. Publicly accessible to all, you will find people of all stripes here coming and going. However, the privacy of the space also provides a sense of closeness and familiarity.

The distinctive architecture of these spaces fascinates me. There lies a certain beauty in the practical design, often modest and put together with care. Flowery ceramic tiles, the shiny basins of hair salons or the knitted patterns on the benches of an underground train evoke certain memories and a feeling of nostalgia. Similar all over the world, spending time here feels familiar and like coming home.

These spaces can provide comfort or solace, since there is no need to pretend or to impress someone and you’ll be accepted as yourself. The comfort of these spaces lies in their simplicity, as they are part of our daily lives. Dutch visual artist Anna Reerds captures this atmosphere in the video installation Soelaas (on display at Eye during the film programme), where she explores how a laundromat or snack bar can give consolation as these spaces allow room for the less glamourous sides of human existence.

Listen to the NTS episode on ‘mallsoft’, a subgenre of vapor wave. This music evokes an image of lobbies, shopping malls, lifts and public restrooms (based on corporate lounge music from the eighties and nineties):

From taxi to public bathroom

Spaces such as bathrooms, lifts, trains and taxis, have played an important role in cinema, and the arts in general. They are the embodiment of intimacy and often set the scene for interesting developments or meaningful moments. Think, for example, about iconic lift scenes where secrets are being shared and glances exchanged.

In the documentary Metal and Melancholy by Heddy Honigmann (available on the Eye Film Player), we drive along with taxi drivers in Lima (Peru), hearing their stories. It captures how a taxi can give a certain freedom, allowing for transient moments spent with a stranger you will probably never meet again. There are no expectations or judgment, and you never know what connections you might make, such as in Night on Earth by Jim Jarmusch, where special bonds develop between quirky characters all over the world.

Another interesting cinematic space is the public bathroom. In the HBO series Industry (about young people navigating the ruthless banking world in London), the bathroom scenes have a fundamental role, for example as a place where crucial information is overheard, or where people can decompress. Wim Wenders even turned restrooms into a main character in Perfect Days, sparking a worldwide interest in Japanese public toilets.

Missed opportunities

Bathroom walls filled with scribbles can give the impression that people constantly want to interact with each other. However, it feels as though live conversations with strangers are becoming more and more rare. We often have the opportunity to connect – commuting on the train, in an apartment’s lift, in the gym locker room – but phones started to play a crucial role in our lives and scrolling through a feed became easier than starting a conversation: missed opportunities, because there are signs that making connections with strangers can make people happier.

With my film programme, I want to celebrate the spontaneous moments of connection and intimacy, and I hope to spark curiosity in the stories of people around us. Next time you are on a long train ride or at the hair salon, allow yourself to be curious, and see what can happen.

(And if you need inspiration to start a conversation, John Wilson might be able to help)