The transformative impact of the covid-19 pandemic does not require much introduction but its progress prompts fundamental questions. We can see once again how the interaction with the domestic space and therefore the perception of it shifts. ‘Home’, once considered our safe space, can shift into something suffocating, just like the breath, the sign of being alive can turn into something that spreads fear.

 

Pillows and cushions hold deep symbolism in art, being mementos of some of our most private and intimate moments. There is something deeply personal about the pillow. Each of us has one, retiring to it at our most genuine and vulnerable moments, either alone or with a partner with whom we can share ‘pillow talk’.

As a result of this connection, the pillow, when out of place or out of context, can feel uncanny, unnerving, or unsettling. For many, it is only by retreating to your pillow every evening that your true self can be expressed. On top of all these, pillow forts have deep connections rooted in our safe and happy memories of childhood, it is the first ‘home’ a person makes for themselves as a child.

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Inhale-Exhale-Inhale-Exhale is the concept stage of a spatial installation of a pillow fort made of inflatable pillows. A space that at first glance intimate and safe, once entered, the pillows on the walls of the installation start to inflate, making the space smaller and smaller, as a eulogy to radical thinking on domestic space shaped by disease.

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*images are generated with AI as the concept stage

*animation is a test for the movement - made with blender