While working on the project, I kept reminiscing about being a little girl riding on a bus and looking into windows of homes passing by. Being not able to see many details of the interior space I was though involved in my play - imagined people who lived there and sometimes felt keenly the beauty or melancholy of their lives.

I started the project two years ago. I took a photo of a person looking out of the window. The distance was big, and I remember I was stricken when looked at the photo on my phone – though I couldn’t see many details, the expression of the face was beautiful - a thousand-yard stare, something very familiar and congenial to me. The next day I took another photo and was amazed by how much in common these people had. I started my collection.

As the project was developing I realized that while working with “portraits” connects me with people, shooting empty interior spaces or windows where a person is not a central figure, throws a bridge to me being little, boost my imagination and connects me more with myself.

Using mobile phone camera for this project is important: “poor quality” becomes an instrument of hidden notion representation: poor details and small, miniature size of images (about 4x6’’) induce to take a closer and more observant look in an effort to unveil what is unseen, discover what is hidden. Window lets you reach the other’s world, but also makes it a safety shield that doesn’t let you come too close. 

The name of the project refers to Edward Hopper’s House by the Railroad. Static solitary figures in their intimate settings give a feeling of endless solitude and reminds of a Hitchcock's frozen moment suspense with anticipation of a sudden event that would break into the space.

Reminiscences (appealing grace of Dutch masters’ characters, subtle realism of Gerhard Richter’s Betty, Schiele’s crawling lines, Edward Hopper’s isolated moments…), déjà vu effect come out and fill up the gap between me and implicit forms that are not evident at a far distance, between me and my own self, past and present, they reestablish links that make my recollection possible. Just as many years ago I found myself involved in a game: a moment of “recognition” comes when looking at a fresh image and I appear on a territory of collective memory, with existential feel of all things’ identity. A window to the other becomes a window to myself.

This is an ongoing project.