shared spaces breed chaos. when existences overlap, we desire order. with roommates—whether that person is spouse, lover, friend, family—there are spaces and situations one must negotiate to create not necessarily harmony but the semblance of tranquility. living with someone, then, is the fine art of keeping chaos in check.
we tame chaos with familiarity. for no good reason, we expect objects to occupy the same space day after day. this consistency is an illusion. the conception of basic living quarters and the objects that make up those spaces—bed, chair, desk, couch—can change without notice. the scissors can disappear. A bottle can break. before long, chaos seems intrinsic to life—the fatal wreck on a sky-blue day, the ambiguity cursing right choices. to regain control, we organize. grand ideas and elaborate schemes recede, replaced by the art of the every day.
what lasts through these times and spaces are the little mementos that pile up and get placed in boxes and forgotten closets and drawers. the tokens that make up a life but which nobody sees unless they are needed to tell a story or fix a window. what they are specifically does not even matter. What you put away, what you organize, what you hide, speaks of priorities. rooms, closets, drawers are there to organize but conceal. what you recognize on first viewing as artful decoration fades from consciousness with repeated viewing. repetition conceals the art of the every day.
the images contained in this series analyze how we use systems to contain and define. they ask us to view the arbitrary nature of any ordering system. we think that a system is intrinsically defined by its parts. but parts, transient, are insufficient for definition. space, with its possibilities, invites chaos. people, with their inconsistencies, create the unknown. for a moment, when we look for a knife or a towel, time slows and space condenses, and we feel in control because we know where the objects are located. the drawer closes. we can look to repeated actions and assumptions for guidance, but they do not last. we can order, think, reorder, and react, but nothing more.
text by Jesse Gipko
title: drawer 02: study A
medium: digital print
size: 30” x 40” edition of 5
date: 2008
drawer study A