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Pille-Riin Vihtre

  • Faculty of Fine Arts
  • Photography
  • ba
  • The Space of Solitude
  • Tutor(s): Laura Kuusk, Reimo Võsa-Tangsoo
  • HD Video, audio
  • 12 min, 18 sec
A film still

In his book The Poetics of Space (Bachelard, 1999), the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard describes how we perceive spaces through our past. All the places where we have lived at a certain period in life are stored in our dreams. The rooms that once gave us a sense of security will comfort us later through our memories. This work depicts a place without a geographical location. It is an abstract room where time does not move linearly and where memories, dreams and the present moment come together simultaneously. The present moment is as fragile and inviolable as our recollections of the past. How do secure something that is inevitably lost in time? Is it even possible? Why is it important to remember the past in the first place? To remember what cannot be relived and which can only be thought of, while these thoughts are also constantly changing.

The title of this work comes from the aforementioned book, in which Bachelard presents the ‘spaces of solitude’ as creative resources. The audio of this film consists of a woman reading a personal letter out loud and daily telephone conversations with family members during quarantine.