Vik Lashchenov

To live with another

Each of us has a space which we consider to be personal. Here I mean the place where we feel safe and comfortable. The peculiarity of this place is that, when we are there, we are free from the models of behaviour defined by society. We can only really be ourselves when no-one else is around.

The idea for this project arose out of concerns about the loss of personal space. There was always someone around me. It might be friends, staying over after a party, or a girl who had moved in with me, or various types of acquaintances staying the night. And no matter how close our relationship, each of these people is not me, it’s another person, and their presence took up part of my personal territory and turned it in to a social space.

While looking for a way to express this idea I began shooting self-portraits in IKEA. The design of the store suggests a mix of the personal and the social. The designed interiors present themselves as personal territory, with the suggestion that you try out this cosy home. At the same time it is a shop, a social space, which presupposes certain rules of behaviour.

In breaking the shop rules, and encouraging other shoppers to do the same, I am broadening my personal space. By doing this I want to reinforce and accentuate the clash of the personal and the public.