As my alarm went off, I woke up to the thought that this is just another one of those days that I have to get through before the lockdown finally ends. I jumped out of bed to get “ready” for another “WFH” day. Knowing that I can’t move beyond the confines of my house, by now I had accepted that I had to manage my life within this space by making the most of it.
Space is always seen as a physical phenomenon. We identify and define different spaces by their physical forms. For example, in our daily lives, we visit our workplaces, gyms, pubs, restaurants, parks, educational institutions etc.
Most often, we limit these definitions to their physical forms, the ones that are created through our social and material interactions within a physical setup.
But spaces aren’t fixed, they are constantly recreated based on the permutations and combinations of these social and material relationships that take place within it. Thus, defining space as a process rather than a fixed place allows us to holistically understand other aspects that plug into the construction of it.
An unprecedented lockdown and a disrupted routine left me feeling unsettled. I didn’t know how I could possibly feel motivated to workout without a gym, follow strict work hours without an office and feel relaxed at home - which now had to take on the role of all these other physical setups that were a part of my daily life. However, as the days passed by, living in a state of lockdown started to feel normal and I realised that I was organically compartmentalising and recreating different spaces through my virtual, social interactions and my material interactions with clothing.
Social interactions influence our spatial experiences. We experience a particular setup very differently based on the people and interactions within it. This is also one of the reasons we experience and interact differently with public and private spaces.
Public spaces bring to life and heighten structural hierarchies as we share the same physical environment with “outsiders” belonging to different genders, castes and social classes. These structural hierarchies are embedded in our behaviours and interactions that construct and mould different spaces. But in private spaces, we are more aware of our surroundings and have fewer structural hierarchies that we need to observe.
Although, in a state of lockdown, we are all experiencing something very new and unsettling. The social interactions of the outside world are now being brought home and becoming part of our inside worlds more than ever. The only difference is that these interactions are now virtual.
Being forced to let all outside social interactions into my home, I find that my relationship with my personal space has been altered. Even though these social interactions are virtual through zoom calls and apps like House Party, I feel a sense of invasion into my personal space where I spent time alone or with my family. Suddenly this space is burdened with other social interactions which inform the way this particular space is altered each time to become a lot more than just home for me. For example, when I am on work calls and I have the video on, my room transforms into an office space just by virtue of the conversations and interactions taking place. An evening of virtual drinks alter the same room into a space for hanging out with friends. However, what is new is that these varied social interactions that are now invading my personal space, often don’t leave that “space”, and even though the physical room transforms from an office to a yoga room, to a workout zone, it never feels like a purely personal space anymore. This highlights how social interactions, even in their virtual form are highly impactful in their construction of spaces.
Our understanding and reconstruction of spaces is not only defined by social interactions as discussed above but is also governed by our material interactions within a given physical setup. I will highlight this through our relationship with clothing and how we use it to maintain and compartmentalise our sense of space. Normally, we dress for an occasion or to go to a certain place. A lot of times defined physical places have defined dress codes i.e. you wouldn't wear pyjamas to your prom, or gym clothes to your workplace. However, the lockdown has brought to surface how this idea could be flipped and instead of dressing to go to a physical “space”, the notion of space itself is created and recreated by these dress codes and practices we adopt.
(So now instead of dressing for a place, you are dressing to ‘create’ a space.)
In addition to social interactions playing their role, my dress practice also equipped me to be able to convert one physical setup into various other spaces. My home has now become my gym, my workplace, and my night out...and all this through my interaction with my clothes. Changing into gym tights and a tank top ready for a work out recreates the physical setup into a space for working out, getting dressed and putting on thick eyeliner for virtual drinks with friends transforms the same place that was my work desk into a recreational space for a night out. I also found that the transformation of space doesn’t require a drastic change in clothing or something elaborate. Even something as little as taking off a bra draws boundaries and helps compartmentalise space. I often find myself wearing a bra to mark the start of a workday and taking it off to mark the end. Just the simple act of taking it off modifies the atmosphere of that particular space. From a serious work space, it switches over to become a more relaxed part of my home where I can unwind.
Although I experienced the dynamic concept of space as a process that is created and recreated with our social and material interactions (combined) in a certain way, there are also people out there who are experiencing spaces in a very different way. Many people are talking about how their private and public social interactions are blurring within a specific physical construct.
However, not everyone is using material interactions to compartmentalise their sense of space. In fact, they are adapting to the idea of changing and merging spaces by also altering their material interactions in a way to adjust to the absence of defined physical places. For example, some people talk about wearing a shirt on the upper half of their body or applying makeup to their faces and wearing pyjamas that they may have not changed for two days. The blurring spaces are also reflected in the blurring dress practice that some people are adopting. “We will only dress to play the part that will be visible and is necessary,” they say.
Thus, as we find ourselves adjusting and accepting our new, restricted lives, we understand that the idea of space has now become a lot more fluid and dynamic. It allows people to make what they like of it, through their social and material interactions, whether they wish to compartmentalise it or merge these spaces into creating something new altogether.