“Place is security, space is freedom: we are attached to the one and long for the other.”
Yi-Fu Tuan, a human geographer, explores the concepts of space and place in his book Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (1977). His central argument is that space and place are deeply connected to human experience, perception, and meaning-making. In his work he highlights that space is an abstract environment of potential, while place is a space enriched with human meaning and experience. The shift from space to place is a fundamental process in how humans interact with their surroundings, shaping personal identity, culture, and geography.
Tuan’s work has inspired me to reflect on my own journey as a migrant—beginning in China, moving to the Netherlands, and later traveling across the world—where the boundaries between space and place continuously shift and evolve. Yet, Tuan didn’t mention the digital world. In today’s, for many people, digital environments, as physical spaces transform into places through human experience, digital spaces (such as social media, online communities, and virtual worlds) also become meaningful places when people form connections, memories, and attachments to them.
The fluidity of space and place that Tuan describes might be even more relevant in the digital age, where people navigate both physical and virtual landscapes.
Space and Place is a scene from the film Mum in the Pocket, which is part of an ongoing autobiographical short film project that began during the COVID pandemic. The project has evolved following the loss of my grandfather, a passing that occurred during a time of restricted movement and profound silence. His death, witnessed only by my eighty-year-old grandmother, prompted me to reflect on the complexities of kinship within the context of the diaspora. What happens to kinship when the fluidity of movement is restricted, and only digital space remains? How does this shift affect everyday acts of care at a distance, intergenerational caregiving, and forms of situated surveillance (Hjorth, Richardson)?
The video, shot from an unconventional angle using self-made filming tools, captures a mundane conversation between my mother and me. The scene portrays my attempt to reminisce with her about a childhood trip and a photo we took together. At the same time, a bottom-up angle reveals my movements as I navigate the corner of the room I occupy. In my effort to locate and make sense of my lived experience, the scene evokes a feeling of absence and repetition—a looping sense of disconnection.
Work
- Clip - Space and Place | Video FullHD | 10’33” | 2023 | Production Country: Belgium
Exhibition View
This video has been screened in an intimate room,
exhibition We Who Are About To... at Het Bos, Antwerp
This image features a filmic script presented in a photobook format, displayed
in the screening room where showing my video Space and Place.
I developed the scenario To the Window of the World alongside this project, weaving together personal
experiences and collective memories shared with my mother.
To learn more about the script To the Window of the World.