in the spaces we keep four residents explore alternative approaches to figurative representation, each asking: must humanness be limited to the body, or can it be something else?  courage hunke's barakkat draws from the accumulated layers of posters throughout the city, which he reads as "community diaries" revealing neighborhood histories and current events. here, the figure exists as a collective presence, the unseen community whose lives generate these layers.

matilda forsberg worked quickly from spontaneous encounters in accra, capturing the figure as an experience, a shift from archival images. communicating the essence of an experience and the people with which it was shared. she also touches on the duality of experiencing the immediate and the echos of memory. dusabe king partially renders faces with a palette knife, treating the figure as memory by recontextualizing the past into "a whole new universe." this approach mirrors how memory functions; much like our brains handle recollection: never fully focusing on all elements simultaneously, always emphasizing some details while letting others blur.

hayfa algwaiz navigates what she calls "visibility and access," focusing on "the humanity of places" and "the things you would only know if you were here." her "living collage" built through comparative observation, creating visual conversations between saudi and ghanaian domestic spaces. approaching the figure as space (intimate) - presence insisting through absence, algwaiz treats moments of cultural observation as invitations rather than declarations. together, these works propose that the human figure might be most present precisely when it withdraws, dissolves, or refuses to fully appear,  ever-present as we hold space.