Interiorities: artistic, conceptual and historical reassessments of the interior

Abstract

This collection addresses interiority as a concept debated by artists and philosophers, historians and sociologists alike. From Augustine to Montaigne, from the monk’s cell to the Renaissance studiolo, the artist’s studio and the modern library, the interior has provided subjectivity with a protective layer that defined one’s identity and its relation to the world. The goal of this interdisciplinary collection is to approach interiority and the interior as relational entities that interact with architectural spaces, visual arts and music, social and political ideologies, geographical and historical structures. How does the interior—of mankind, of the earth, of architecture—affect identity, its historical, cultural and artistic representation? How do we think of the interior other than as Cartesian solipsism or as a volatile architectural decorum? How does the Earth’s interior relate to the world we experience every day? Just as the façade relates a building to the public space and betrays something of its interior structure, the interior is hereby approached as a space that mediates between the psyche, its history and its impact onto the world.