6 minute read
THE SPACE BETWEEN
By Claire Jung (Communication Design, ‘24)
This place is a room at the front of my house on the second floor. When I was in elementary school, I turned it into a school for my dolls. A chalkboard, an old school desk, and a big carpet. Little chairs and makeshift desks, little books, little pencils, and little hall passes. It would grow and change as I got new ideas for them. “You would hang up their papers, and the types of things you would hang up in a classroom, like decorations, awards, and instructions,” my mom says.
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Childhood me, running around playing teacher in a room filled to the brim with toys and knick knacks. Even doll-sized things begin to take up space. It became crammed with stuff on every surface, and as the space got smaller I got bigger. Eventually, I stopped using it, and the room became just another place to store unused things. And it stayed like that for years, like an oversized closet of forgotten things.
Stretch your right arm out, completely straight. And now your left. Keep them out at 180 degrees and spin. Do you hit anything? Or do you feel an empty bubble of air around you?
In many ways, 2020 has given us unprecedented challenges, and besides the obvious sickness and conflict, this has manifested in more abstract ways as well. We’ve all heard the phrase “I need space” and are familiar with “needing personal space,” but never before have we all been so intimately aware of space.
Think back to a year ago about how you might’ve been standing arm to arm in a subway car, jostling between strangers at a concert, or sitting so close to someone in a classroom you could smell their gum. These memories are like some alternate reality, and I’m sure some of us are uncertain if we ever really lived like that at all.
Space can be defined as, “the freedom and scope to live, think, and develop in a way that suits one.”1 This year, students are discovering that this is a luxury they’ve been taking for granted. When asked how remote learning has changed their relationship with space and privacy, a student responded, “I didn’t realize how much space and privacy were important, until I had to remotely learn. They are really important to successfully learn.”2
Think about how you look at space now. You try to stay 6 feet apart in the grocery store, stand back when you talk to someone, cringe when you see people gathering in large groups, and shudder at the thought of schools functioning at full capacity. Personal space was merely an afterthought but is now the driving force behind all decisions and activities. It has completely dictated the learning experience of students across the country and even around the world. They describe this new reality by saying,
Art students, in particular, find that their education is suffering from a lack of hands-on collaboration and human connection during critiques, but most of all they are concerned with accessing the space and resources they feel are necessary in order to succeed.3
There was a pause in life that was felt around the world, and like many I was forced into staying home for college. It was unfathomable. Finishing high school from home made me feel like my brain was leaking out of my ears, and there was very little learning involved at that point. I spent all hours of the day in my bedroom with absolutely no separation between work and rest. I was overwhelmed, surrounded, trapped. How could I start my most important educational years like this?
As I tried to figure out where I could possibly go, I kept coming back to that room. If it was empty, it’d be perfect. It was unavoidable. I had to clean it.
Years and years of toys were thrown out, donated, packed away. It felt as if the stuff was just appearing out of thin air, there was no way there could infinitely be so much stuff. But eventually enough had been cleared away to reveal s p a c e .
Space can be defined as, “a continuous area or expanse which is free, available, or unoccupied.”1 Art students are being confronted with the importance of this concept as one says, “It seems there is not nearly enough [space].”2 Most have been forced to seclude themselves in their bedrooms, the only place they can get a semblance of privacy. Their places of rest become studios, blurring the separation between school and their private life.
Online classes have the potential to make you feel like you’re constantly being watched. Even with your camera turned off and your audio muted, there’s the unavoidable exhaustion of having a constant, strange presence in your home. Your professors and your peers, always existing with you in a place that should be sacred and safe.
The clutter, the expectations, the uncertainty– it makes the space begin to feel like it’s closing in.
I brought in a drawing table and all of the art supplies that were crammed into my bedroom. It became a complete art studio, and a clean slate. I still feel cooped up sometimes, but at least it gives me enough of a change of pace and routine. It’s quiet and private in a way that my bedroom isn’t. The first floor has too much energy, but the top floor is dormant.
There’s still boxes sitting in the corners of the room– remnants of a long gone childhood. Though the same books sit on the shelves, the room is nearly unrecognizable. If not for the green, sloping walls and ceiling, and the window that looks out onto the street, I would not believe it is the same room I used to play with my dolls in. So much has changed, but I’m still playing school in it.
Despite the lack of space art students are finding in their homes and the space needed to keep people safe, we are quickly discovering we have too much space. We’ve been isolated and constrained to limited places.
Space can be defined as, “an interval of time.”1 For months we’ve been ripped away from our most basic human need: closeness and interaction with other people. An article detailing this experience says, “This isn’t normal, and even though everybody’s going through it, it can feel very isolating and alone if you’re in your room at home in Ohio or Maryland or Oregon, you’re not seeing your friends, you’re not getting that campus feel, I think it’s a very lonely feeling.”4
What do you remember about elementary school? It likely won’t be any specific lessons, but it’ll be the field trips you went on, the teachers you had, the friends you made, and what you did at recess. You remember the interactions you had, and that’s what shapes you as a person. It’s no different in college. And no technology will ever come close to replacing that.
I’ve given myself all the space I need, and yet I am still alone.
1 McKean, Erin. The New Oxford American Dictionary. New York, N.Y: Oxford University Press, 2005. Print.
2 Jung, Claire. “Distance Learning Survey.” 27 Oct 2020. https://forms.gle/RDL38XHgxeWV8Bid8
3 Vagner, Kris. How is the pandemic affecting art education? Nevada, Double Scoop, 2020. Double Scoop, https:// www.doublescoop.art/how-is-the-pandemic-affecting-art-education/. Accessed October 2020.
4 “Remote learning: An altered college experience.” UWIRE Text, 14 Oct. 2020, p. 1. Gale OneFile: News, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A638297502/STND?u=fitsuny&sid=STND&xid=29a8c1bf. Accessed 10 Nov. 2020.
