The lockdown of the past two months obliged many of us to limit our activities within the walls of our homes. Here in Milan, rules have been quite strict: we were allowed to get out just for essential needs, like grocery shopping or going to the pharmacy, and this only within a radius of 200 metres from our homes. While spring was blooming outside, we were shut within four walls, with just a few things to stimulate us. Working from home, looking out of the window became my last resort. I started to observe my neighbours when they appeared on their windows or balconies. Week after week, I was able to recognise them, to notice patterns in their behaviours, in the way they use (or not) their space. Some of them would open their windows or sit on their balconies at the same hour, every day. Two old ladies living on opposite buildings still check on each other every morning at 10 pm – they talk about the weather, the news and about going to the supermarket – their loud voices fill the block with a sense of solidarity and togetherness. But even the empty balconies with open windows and invisible owners became food for my imagination, making me wonder who hides behind them and how they might deal with the lockdown. 

Observing more than 50 apartments in the course of two months has taught me to deal with photography in a static way: to wait for the decisive moment, to stay still but in constant alertness, to be patient until a potential subject appears. And in fact, in most cases the subject disappeared before I was able to reach my camera – I only managed to capture just a few of those decisive moments. Like the protagonist in Hitchcock’s film Rear Window, I found an attraction in peeking into my neighbours’ lives, watching the same setting every day and trying to notice the differences – all this while there is no noise of traffic, but only distant voices and birds chirping. I admit that many times I wondered whether I was crossing the limit between observing and spying. This dialogue from Rear Window gave a comforting answer to my doubts:

“I wonder if it’s ethical to watch a man with binoculars and a long-footage lens […] Of course they can do the same thing to me, watch me like a bug under a glass, if they wanted to.”

© Dafni Riga 2020