Communal Living

Mikhaila Jurkiewicz

Australian National University

The work, Communal Living, is a collection of monochrome photographs from share houses around Australia, from Canberra, Goulburn and Sydney. The work is about the interactions and the relationships of their occupants and the spaces they live within. Individuals brought together by the basic necessity to live. In the communal space the most complex of bonds and families form as the house must become the ëhomeí. Each house brings with it a line of commonality; the empty bottles, the found furniture and objects that fill the rooms and spaces. The housemates each form their own mentality as a household. Neither two houses result in the same. The differences between each of the houses shown; built by the micro-relationships between the individuals in each house. Some groups form great solidarity as pseudo-families away from home, becoming willing to bare all to one another. Others maintain space between each other as strangers under the same roof.

Share-house university students. Names withheld.