There’s something thrilling and transgressive about looking through the window of a stranger’s house: It’s a rare insight into how other people really live their lives when they think no one is watching. Voyeuristic as it may seem, there’s something to be gained from seeing and being seen in our private spaces—a sense of communion with strangers, that feels particularly necessary in big cities. In Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 thriller Rear Window, this enforced closeness becomes a metaphor for the voyeurism of urban confinement, and the moral responsibility—or lack thereof—between neighbors. Jeff, a wounded documentary photographer, takes to looking out of his Manhattan apartment window and studying his neighbors to pass the time until he can work again. He observes a composer obsessively playing the same song over and over, a ballet dancer who dances rather than walks around her apartment and a lonely This story is from Kinfolk Issue Forty-One Buy Now Related Stories Arts & Culture Issue 47 Alice Sheppard On dance as a channel to commune with the body—even when it hurts. Arts & Culture Issue 47 Dr. Woo Meet the tattoo artist who's inked LA. Arts & Culture Issue 47 Walt Odets The author and clinical psychologist on why self-acceptance is the key to a gay man's well-being. Arts & Culture Fashion Issue 47 A Picture of Health Xiaopeng Yuan photographs the world’s weirdest wellness cures. Arts & Culture Issue 47 Chani Nicholas and Sonya Passi Inside the astrology company on a mission to prove workplace well-being is more than a corporate tagline. Arts & Culture Issue 47 Julia Bainbridge On the life-enhancing potential of not drinking alcohol.
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