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G0 TO your room! the parent's voice gives one last warning!
Punishment.
I´m going to my room the boy's voice expressing he wants to be alone.
Pleasure.
I'm going to MY ROOM the door shuts with a bang. Entrance prohibited.
A threat.
Vegar Moen has photographed those rooms. He knows what a boy's room is. I can tell from the photographs how carefuliy he opened the doors. All the pictures include some floor, wall, a corner
and a piece of turniture. We notice how he did not enter those rooms without permission. He asked before opening the doors and photographed in the existing light. Afterwards he closed the door
behind him. Silent and respectfully. Nothing touched. Because it is familiar. I can smell and hear the room of Einar, Magne and Rune. Vegar Moen also knows these sounds.This private room - crudely private. This final destination when all seemed to go wrong. Or this fortress where no others were allowed to enter, where the idols and the dreams went wild with you and your own smell of sweat.
The room where new sounds were discovered and secrets layed beneath the bed. This was the room where wallpaper from the hallway mixed with grandma's sofa. The shelf from that old living-room and the lamp from before mum and dad moved together. The room where ideas could grow cause they were protected by walls. You never cared about the electricity bill or the rent.This was your room. This obviously private room.
What happened to that room?
«A Room of One's Own» is the title of a book based on lectures wich Virginia Woolf wrote 1928 I do not remember much of the contents, but the title stays on my mind like a commendment. After seeing the photographs from the boys' rooms, I picked up that book again. Virginia Wooif is no longer a child, she is 46 when she writes «A Room of One's Own». She says: "...a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction...". Virginia Woolf was a feminist and a modernist. Now, 70 years later, I dare to include the man in this sentence,
On the last page Virginia Wooif continues: «...if we have the habit of freedom and the courage to write exactly what we think; if we escape a little from the common sitting-room and see human beings not always in their relation to each other but in relation to reality; and the sky, too, and trees or whatever it may be in themse!ves.....».
Vegar Moen's photographs become a reminder of those rooms, where we can be alone. A tribute to the teenager. He pays tribute to those who write their opinions on wallpaper, or carve it on their beds, those who use their room, collecting all the little things that might become useful. He reminds us of what we hide beneath our beds, with care.
A. K.Dolven (London 9.9.97)
A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf, first released 1928
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