Alessandra Sormani

Living Room

This series of photographs looks at the relationship people form with their living room and particularly their television.

A living room typically conforms to a set layout of furniture (sofa, armchairs, coffee table, bookshelves), which, more often than not, centres on a television.  It is, nonetheless, a personal space, as it is the place that people feel able to relax at the end of the day and where they feel at home.

Here, in front of the TV, perhaps with close family or friends, a person’s behaviour is undoubtedly different from when they are outside – at work, in the supermarket, in a bar – and coming across strangers and less familiar surroundings. This very private space in which people watch TV is, of course, quite unlike the very public space that appears on the TV they are watching. But that distinction is not always so clear and is something I have been looking at by photographing people in their own homes. Certainly, the line is blurred in the act of setting up and photographing such a scene.