Railway tracks cut through the landscape.
Behind fences, weeds grow through concrete.
Children play where machinery once stood.
Graffiti fades beneath new layers of paint.
Trains pass. Dogs bark. Windows light up at dusk.

Nothing feels entirely complete, yet nothing feels forgotten.
The city unfolds through small acts of use, adaptation, and everyday presence.
Life settles into the spaces left open.

Anderlecht is a place of precarity.

By being there long enough, something shifts in your perception. You begin to notice changes not only in the space, but in yourself as well. The questions you initially have about the place now shift inward. It is no longer only about what this place is, but about who you become within it, how you see it, and how it shapes the way you move through it.

AM I THE SPACE WHERE I AM?

The central premise is that we are never a fixed individual.
Instead, every space evokes a different version of ourselves:

WE ADAPT,
REACT,
REMEMBER,
ANTICIPATE,
AND BECOME SOMEONE ELSE

Space is therefore understood not as a passive backdrop,
but as an active participant in the construction of identity.

The research is conducted through personal experience and observation. Combining filming, editing, walking, and reflective writing, the project documents a journey through urban spaces while tracing the subtle transformations of the self that occur along the way.

Project I am the space where I am
Location Brussels, Belgium
Author Žan Pirman
Type Video essay
Year 2024

See also:
ab initio
precarious molenbeek
pedagogy of landscape