"Us"
Performance/photo 2008
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Jonas Vansteenkiste’s US is a sculptural work that operates as a relational object—a shared pillow that physically and symbolically binds two individuals. At first glance, the piece evokes comfort and intimacy: the soft form of the pillow references domesticity, closeness, and emotional support. Yet, as the interaction unfolds, the object’s apparent tenderness gives way to a darker undercurrent of mutual dependence and loss of self.
By compelling two people to physically connect through a single point of rest, US stages a relational performance in which the boundaries between self and other begin to blur. Over time, the identities of the individuals appear to dissolve into a single, shared figure—a visual metaphor for the psychological entanglement that can occur within close human relationships. The object, though quiet in form, thus becomes a stage for a powerful negotiation of autonomy and connection.
Vansteenkiste’s work resonates with the theoretical framework of psychoanalysis and object relations theory, particularly the writings of D.W. Winnicott, who described the "transitional object" as a mediator between the self and the external world. In US, the pillow becomes a transitional—and potentially transformational—object, charged with emotional ambivalence. It enables contact, but also imposes a limit. What initially seems like a shared space of comfort gradually transforms into a site of suffocation, where intimacy threatens to collapse into enmeshment.
The symbiotic configuration of the two participants reveals the tension between togetherness and individuation. While the pillow physically unites the bodies, it also restricts them. Their continued closeness becomes a kind of constraint. In this way, US explores not only physical proximity but also the psychological costs of emotional over-identification. The work asks: at what point does intimacy become possession? When does empathy slip into erasure?
This duality is reflected in the very form of the piece—soft yet inescapable, inviting yet coercive. Vansteenkiste constructs an unseen space, one not architecturally defined but psychologically and socially charged. The pillow marks a liminal zone, a threshold between connection and confinement. The installation references what anthropologist Edward T. Hall would call "proxemic space": the invisible, culturally coded distances between individuals that structure social interaction. In US, that space collapses into zero—eliciting both comfort and claustrophobia.
US thus functions as a quiet yet potent allegory of emotional entanglement. It examines how shared space can become saturated with invisible tensions—how acts of closeness might simultaneously nurture and suffocate. Through minimal means, Vansteenkiste stages a deeply psychological inquiry into the nature of relational identity, reminding us that the borders between self and other are never fixed, and that even the most tender connections can hold within them the seeds of dissolution.