Tender Hours (While the Meat Softens) is a photographic series born from visits to share houses across London, where I cook meals and document the lives that momentarily blend together in those spaces. Though I come with a camera, the act of photographing is never the priority—it is simply a pretext to sit at the table, share a meal, and be present. It is not a performance, but rather an “intention not to perform.”
Cooking becomes a quiet ritual. While the meat is marinating and softening, I speak with the residents—about the house, their lives, their routines and frictions, the joys and the silences. Only after we share a table does the camera begin to work. If needed, I return multiple times to build trust—not only between myself and the residents, but between the residents themselves.
What I aim to observe is the shift from strangers living under the same roof to something more—unrelated people who, inexplicably, begin to resemble a family. I’m curious about the chemistry that allows irritations to soften, and differences to be held without judgment. This is inspired by Édouard Glissant’s Poetics of Relation.
In an age where social media has made human relationships hyper-visible and fragile, I see how shallow empathy often leads to deeper division. This project is a way to return to the primal act of sharing space and time—of physical presence, of touching, eating, waiting.
I believe that it’s only within complex, ambiguous, ever-changing relationships that we can generate and hold something unspeakably important—something tender, real, and untranslatable. I don’t just want to capture these relationships. I want to create them, by entering a home, mixing into its rhythms, and letting something shift.
In London, share housing is not a fringe alternative but a mainstream way of living, due to soaring rent and a layered socio-political context: immigration, class, generational shifts. The houses I visit are incredibly diverse—some shared between friends, others among strangers, some close to homestays. Architecturally too, the variety is wide: from classic Victorian homes to industrial conversions, narrowboats, and sleek modern flats.
By entering these spaces, I hope to understand the essence of “living together”—not just practically, but emotionally. This project will continue to evolve during my stay in London.
These are photographic works intended to be presented as a group of framed photographs. The current frame sizes are provisional and can be adjusted as needed.
