The room is the world: reflecting on the lived life of hikikomori through photography

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us have been subjected to involuntary quarantines, thus inevitably experiencing social isolation. Such an experience, however, is nothing new to a Hikikomori. This Japanese term refers to the phenomenon of acute social withdrawal as well as to the person who undergoes such self-imposed seclusion. To reflect on the lived life of a Hikikomori, this chapter examines a recent photographic project called Goodbye Without Leaving (2021). In this commemorative photo research, Atle Blekastad reconstructs from his memories the room in which his brother, who had been a Hikikomori for over 20 years, took his life in 2012. To examine this photograph, the chapter first unpacks the recent sociocultural research on hikikomori to underline the causes and factors that may induce such a societal retreat. Afterward, it employs Bachelard’s method of “topo-analysis” and Casey’s notion of “place memory” to shed light on the conjunction of memory and place. Finally, by drawing on the Nietzschean notion of “eternal return” and Deleuze’s and Cadava’s reinterpretations of this temporal concept, the chapter argues that Goodbye Without Leaving embodies the lived life of Hikikomori as an endless expansion of place and a boundless cessation of time.