Public Intimacies

Public Intimacies is a durational performance-installation developed by Soft Power Studios that explores what happens when private gestures and domestic rituals are brought into public space. We live and work in a city, a country, and a world that does not always understand us—our languages, our bodies, our ways of moving, our private habits, and our contradictions. Misunderstanding is not unusual; it is part of daily life. Yet even within this fragmentation, something remains deeply shared.
When we are alone, when no one is watching, we inhabit versions of ourselves that are unperformed. These private selves are shaped by habit, memory, comfort, and care. They move through routines that rarely require translation: washing, cooking, resting, waiting, repeating small actions that structure everyday life. These gestures usually belong to the interior spaces of a home, protected by walls and privacy.
In Public Intimacies, fragments of domestic life appear outdoors. Rooms of a home are suggested through simple objects and actions, creating a house without walls. Artists inhabit these spaces through quiet, durational performances that unfold slowly over time. Everyday acts normally hidden from public view become visible to passing audiences.
The work asks: What happens when something meant to stay inside becomes public? What happens when familiar gestures are spoken in languages that cannot be understood? Where does meaning live then—in language, or in gesture, proximity, and shared time?
We may not understand one another’s words, but we recognize tone, rhythm, vulnerability, and presence. Through witnessing these small actions together, Public Intimacies invites audiences to consider how intimacy, care, and human connection persist even when language fails.