Over the last two years, many of us spent a significant part of our days in ‘the study’. Maybe there was an already existing corner in our house, maybe the kitchen table or spare bedroom were transformed into a study. Maybe our corridor got enriched with shelves that could unfold as a desk. Or maybe our bed –if this wasn’t already the case– became our main study. Perhaps ‘study’ sounds somewhat 19th century like. Historically, the study of a house was reserved for use as the private office and reading room of a family father as the formal head of a household.
Today, a study is no longer necessary a room, and doesn’t only belong to the ‘head’ of the household. Our mobile workplace, office or zoom-room can reside in different parts of the house or elsewhere, changing location over the course of a day.
Ideally, a study is a quiet place. A (privileged) space for reading, thinking and reflection. For concentration, hard work, and self-learning. It is the space of the autodidact, surrounded by other voices in the form of books, records, or articles, that only speak when consulted. The study asks us to be attentive, even disciplined. Here, the walls may protect us from noise and movement. Maybe there’s a window that allows us to wander off and muse now and then. It’s a place where we’d like to isolate ourselves. Doors may be closed. Or, when we leave our desk, our laptop is closed, protected with a password, preventing others from reading what we read, considered, attempted.
When something is created and completed, it may find its way out of our study, into the world and the web. But what about the countless works that are not finished, not ready to leave the room or the hard drive. Maybe time was up. Maybe there was another, better idea that came up. Or maybe it was actually a study, a piece intended to practice and to learn. Annotations in a book, notes to self.
This second issue of //\ hoekhuis sheds light on the hidden structures, voices, rituals and unfinished or preparatory works that reside in the study. Beyond what is learned or written in this room, it takes a closer look at the ways in which we study, practice, make attempts, try again and decide what we keep, continue with or leave unfinished. And how we forget about most of it, always pursuing something new, while an archive of documents and snippets is growing...
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