Sophie Calle

“On Monday, February 16, 1981 I was hired as a temporary chambermaid for three weeks in a Venetian hotel. I was assigned twelve bedrooms

On the forth floor. In the course of my cleaning duties, I examined the personal belongings of hotel guests and observed through details lives which remained unknown to me”.  (Sophie Calle)

Calle works in the medium of inventories. She records activities within these unitary spaces, and through textual and photographic documentation. She records ephemeral actions. The works capture the process of looking, examining, observing and recording. In this sense her role is similar to a detective. This role is also captured in the factual seemingly disinterested manner in which the photographs are made, and the documents
presented. The mode of presentation subtracts Calle’s motivations, yet the piece remains voyeuristic. We can occasionally see this when she narrates her own responses to the space.