This is a collection of photographs about London windows and what the house’s owners (or tenants) display behind the glass.

Walking around my neighbourhood in West London when I first arrived in the U.K., I was surprised to see so many things visible through the house’s windows. Maybe it’s because Victorian villas have usually very large windows and unless you live with the curtains always closed, it’s impossible to keep your home (and your private life) separate from the outside world, but I found it an interesting starting point for reflections upon other’s people life, dreams and beliefs.

The thing that really struck me, was that in many houses the objects exhibited near the windows were turned outwards with the clear intention of communicate something to the outside. This peculiar way of interact with unknown people, inspired me to not only welcome that request for attention but also to record it and amplify it through the use of the camera.

The title originates from a famous quotation from Franz Kafka (I’m not sure but I believe it comes from the letters to his secret lover, the journalist and writer Milena Jesenská) that says:

“May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.”

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What Kafka writes to express a pointless action (to kiss the air) as reply to the unfair and equally useless request to love someone from a distance, I like to see it here as a decision to bring the communication to a wider context as last resource when other social relationships fail. It’s not necessarily a pointless action and, in my opinion, it shouldn’t be interpreted as a desperate gesture inspired by loneliness but, on the contrary, as a desire born from love to overcome social and physical boundaries in search of intellectual elective affinities.