AUS-GANG
The play on words, or rather on phonetics, is the one with the English “house gang” – a group of people: and the German “Ausgang”: exit, going out. Two concepts that practically sound identical, but that are opposites, especially during a lockdown period, but which in this situation share a common denominator: ME
Me, my house gang. Me, my companion during those rare, long-awaited, brief moments outdoors.
But it’s also true that the inside and the outside were interchangeable. The deserted streets, the full houses. The day was as silent as the night. The night was darker than the night itself. The windows were escape routes, glimpses onto other universes. The balconies were views onto the world, the lives of others, in suspended time.
Confined in daily life, becoming familiar with our homes, the neighbors, the neighborhood, feeling like strangers in our own shoes. Strangers in the streets where we grew up, that perhaps we looked at for the first time. since every moment outdoors was an achievement and our eyes accompanying us became new ones.
Yet, how often would we have wanted more time to spend at home, more time to dedicate to ourselves: what did we want to do with all that time? And when we had it, what did we do with it?