A nearly inescapable fact of modern life is that most of us spend more time in just a few rooms in our homes than the sum of time spent anywhere else on Earth – and perhaps doubly so over the past year of pandemic-related lockdowns. And so, unsurprisingly, our spaces also tend to occupy a rather prominent place in our minds. Do they need a clean? A redecoration? To be ditched for a new arrangement altogether? And what – good, bad and ugly – do they reveal about us to visitors? Featuring clever animated sequences in which talking, shifting shapes transform along to the reflective words of interviewees, Rooms explores how the mental and physical spaces of our rooms intersect and overlap.
How our rooms shape our world, and vice versa
Director: Rohan Patrick McDonald
Website: Shelf Shelf

videoConsciousness and altered states
What do screens depicting serene natural scenes mean to those living in lock-up?
12 minutes

videoHome
The stunningly beautiful home ‘in which the mental space is what matters’
5 minutes

videoFilm and visual culture
Our world has very different contours when a millimetre is blown up to a full screen
8 minutes

videoHome
Whether above a pub or in a castle, our childhood homes leave an indelible mark
15 minutes

videoWork
What is it like to clean the world for tomorrow while the rest of a city sleeps?
7 minutes

videoSubcultures
Bad puns, regrettable costumes, and other joys of collecting kitschy album art
13 minutes

videoSocial psychology
Is the office cubicle actually designed to crush your soul?
26 minutes

videoTechnology and the self
A curtain that twitches as people walk by creates a delightful paradox of privacy
3 minutes

videoHome
How an artist transformed a dilapidated hunting lodge into a house made of dreams
8 minutes