Glimpse

For my Graduate Exhibition, In Between Moments, I created a body of work inspired by my favorite word: sonder. Sonder is defined in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows as, “the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own…in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background.” Sonder lends itself to not only foster empathy but expands empathy in a more complex and inclusive sense. The purpose of my work is to elicit the sensation of sonder with the ultimate goal of fostering a deeper and inclusive empathy in the viewer and their community. This specific piece focuses on the most approachable and universal sense of sonder—when you are able to peer into a stranger's personal space. This intimate experience typically reveals aspects of their lives, causing the viewer to become self aware for a moment and recognize just how complex each person’s life is. This can help break-down egocentric thinking by encouraging curiosity about others’ perspectives and emotions, helping us to appreciate our shared humanity—even with strangers. Considering how complex humans are and how intricate sonder is as an emotion, I expanded my art to accommodate such detail. This painting of an apartment complex reveals scenes inside each room, highlighting the nuance of human dynamics silhouetted in solitude or family systems—creating a tension between intimacy and anonymity. In addition I wanted to incorporate more sensations in the experience, using audiobites I collected, I spliced together a sort of abstract overlapping narrative audio aspect. Using the attached headphones, the viewer is able to encounter the imagined sounds of these lives that bridges the physical separation the windows create. This work is an exercise in theory of mind and perspective, inviting the viewer to confront their own biases and assumptions, fostering a greater sense of curiosity and connection.