Domestic Encyclopedia: Oblique Encounters of Domestic Space

Inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin's theory of "the container for the thing contained," Viken revisits the typical rooms of a house as containers for domestic interaction

In this "encyclopedia of domestic space," artist and author Annee Grøtte Viken enters a dialogue with the conventional spaces that surround us, the semiotic skin we call home. She uses her first love, literature, to imagine and give voice to the seemingly mute spaces we inhabit, collecting bits and pieces from the western canon and non-western counter-canon. Inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin's essay "The Carrier Bag Theory," which proposes a shift from the contained to the container, Viken moves through seven different archetypes of domestic space to find characters lying in baths, dreaming in beds and cooking in kitchens. By each time articulating the imagined voices of these spaces, she embarks on a poetic journey into the drifting island of home.
Annee Grøtte Viken is a writer, artist and architect based in Selbu and Brussels.