Text contribution for the book Intimacy Exposed, edited by Javier Fernández Contreras and Roberto Zancan, co-edited by HEAD – Genève (HES-SO), published by Spector books, 2023. 110 pp., ca. 100 colour illustrations, perfect-bound softcover, 30 × 23 cm, ISBN: 9783959055833.
The text was originally written for to the exhibition Spot on – Toilet Stories, curated for Gebert Stiftung für Kultur / Alte Fabrik.
The analysis of sanitary spaces and places dedicated to personal care, as in a privacy observatory, helps with the in-depth assessment of social changes, allowing us to determine how the lives of users can be improved, how conflicts of use in public places can be resolved between populations of different sexes and ages, and how the quality of public and private health can be enhanced. Observing these issues pushes us to explore the forms and meanings of bathrooms and private spaces in relation to their different functions, including those of transgressive and informal meeting places and spaces of inevitable and forced social coexistence. This book constitutes a new step in this field of research, presenting a series of scientific and artistic interventions that proves the diverse range of uses to which ”wet rooms“ can be put in social life, the evolution of the use of furniture, and the new meanings of details and objects in domestic bathrooms and public toilets.