I've always been fascinated by places and homes. All kinds, all manners of life pottering about houses and neighbourhoods and towns and countries. From the various rooms on the levels of low cost flats, to suburban terrace houses with potted plants and wind chimes, glittering bungalows with driveways dotted with shiny continental cars, to the modest timber houses tucked behind a bustling main road in Kuala Lumpur. And then there are the ones that are further away, enchanting me only through tales and images and illustrations. The aboriginal huts in Tasmania, delicious baroque apartments overlooking the Eiffel Tower, a rundown ghetto corner that often see the homeless and drug dealers trafficking in Rio.
What are the people in these places like? I often wonder. Did that grey haired woman in soft cotton danced her heart out and screamed for Elvis Presley in her youth? I bet that measly old man once desired to be an astronaut. That guy in a suit - is he a secret agent? Did he just embezzle a company, defend a murderer? And that teenage girl, maybe she's the next musical sensation and would go on to win millions of awards and touch lives despite having her peers not really pay attention to her now. It's a wandering curiousity, perhaps some rosy, thought consuming disease, intrigued by the numerous facial expressions and soulful eyes, sensual gaits and hurried steps that pass by me. It's people with lives and with stories to tell - perchance dangerously charming ones that might never meet another ears or eyes.
There was a feature in the January issue of Readers Digest that captured me to no end. It had pictures of a diverse collective of children from all parts of the world and what their bedrooms were like. It enthralled me, their possessions, their daily activities, the way they glared out at the camera with disdain or haunted eyes. A kid who checked his finances everyday on the high tech laptop from his Upper East Side New York penthouse, to the kid who took daily baths in the community center before scavenging around for recyclable plastics in the slum - featured next to each other within pages of a magazine, but living worlds apart. I want to see all of them in real life, I want to visit these worlds and explore their magic and tell the universe that there's more out there, more beyond what we know it to be.
What are the people in these places like? I often wonder. Did that grey haired woman in soft cotton danced her heart out and screamed for Elvis Presley in her youth? I bet that measly old man once desired to be an astronaut. That guy in a suit - is he a secret agent? Did he just embezzle a company, defend a murderer? And that teenage girl, maybe she's the next musical sensation and would go on to win millions of awards and touch lives despite having her peers not really pay attention to her now. It's a wandering curiousity, perhaps some rosy, thought consuming disease, intrigued by the numerous facial expressions and soulful eyes, sensual gaits and hurried steps that pass by me. It's people with lives and with stories to tell - perchance dangerously charming ones that might never meet another ears or eyes.
There was a feature in the January issue of Readers Digest that captured me to no end. It had pictures of a diverse collective of children from all parts of the world and what their bedrooms were like. It enthralled me, their possessions, their daily activities, the way they glared out at the camera with disdain or haunted eyes. A kid who checked his finances everyday on the high tech laptop from his Upper East Side New York penthouse, to the kid who took daily baths in the community center before scavenging around for recyclable plastics in the slum - featured next to each other within pages of a magazine, but living worlds apart. I want to see all of them in real life, I want to visit these worlds and explore their magic and tell the universe that there's more out there, more beyond what we know it to be.
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