The two conscious beings in ROOMS are a woman and a spider, in an intimate encounter. The director was inspired by her own lockdown experiences. In the absence of human contact, she was encouraged to think about the ways in which we interact with the other living organisms that inhabit our environment. The presence of the spider is not just a disturbance: the project brings an equal focus to both creations. It is the spider that exerts control over its environment, in contrast to the passivity of the woman, reading aloud from a text written by others, in surroundings of someone else’s creation. By reversing the normal power relations between human and insect, the project explores the ways in which humans have developed a desire for control over the natural world. This control has had many consequences. Human beings have moved beyond developing ways to live in different habitats to a society in which we aim to hold power over its forces
