Implementing the Intervention

On Friday 4th September I presented my flatmates with an agreement that explained the intervention and stated the rules of it. We all signed it and on the following Monday the intervention began.

I removed an exisiting piece of art from one of the walls in the ‘dining area’ and replaced it with a blank canvas measuring 30×30. Two black markers were placed on the dining table. Nobody was at home when this happened as both Cory and Tom work full time so the canvas sat untouched for a while. It wasn’t long before something caught my eye, something that shouldn’t be where it was and so the complaints began…

When the boys returned home at the end of the day they were delighted with the new addition to the apartment and it didn’t take long for them to find something to comment on. Apart from this there wasn’t much for me to do other than observe and participate in the same capacity as Cory and Tom. I was able to document small moments when others were home and writing on the board but for the most part it was done with no one else around, the only indication that someone had been there was the addition of new complaints or comments. I thought this was quite interesting as its not a big physical change to the space that you immediately notice (like another person present) but a small detail that only slightly alters the room but is a change nonetheless. Some of the comments created a change too, for example there may have been dishes left out that I complained about, upon returning to the room some time later the dishes are gone. Someone has been there, noticed the complaint and taken away the cause of it without it becoming a large and noticeable action. I began to realise that our days are made up of a lot of these small changes, many of them so small we would never take note but certainly several larger changes too.

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The canvas remained up for the duration of the week, running from Monday-Sunday instead of Monday-Friday as initially proposed and was agreed upon by flatmates. I decided to leave it up a few extra days as I was curious to see if anything different would happen on the weekend that could be added to the canvas. In a way this would reflect the different actions we have through the week and weekend or if there even would be a difference.