Vegard: ‘I am happy living in my flat in Oslo, but I also feel at home in a sailboat at sea.’ Oslo, Norway.
When asked to write what he will miss from the lockdowns, Vegard, who is a graphic designer, explains that he will miss working from home and spending more time with his partner. He also adds that, during the lockdowns, the nursery often closed early. In these instances, the parents would take their kids up to the block co-op and stay there for hours, socialising outdoors. Randi, who lives with her two young children and partner in another block within the co-op, is another frequent user of the co-op playground. One of her photographs shows the children playing outside in wintertime. A big pile of snow has become a favoured space for play, where the children dig caves and slide down the slope. The children are the subjects of the photograph, but the camera also captures the long shadows of the parents, standing together and socialising. The playground is an important site for social encounters, where both adults and children can form relationships: both Randi and Vegard explain how, thanks to their children, they have gotten to know other people in the area.
In a map of his neighbourhood and where he goes on a regular basis, Vegard marks two kinds of destinations: grocery shops (REMA 1000 and Kiwi) and places related to his young son. In the upper left corner of the block, the nursery his son attends is drawn as a rectangle [barnehagen til min sønn] and the route they take from the block to the nursery is marked with a dotted line. To the right of the map, he has marked ‘the yellow playground’, [gule lekeplassen]: a recently built playground at Tøyen that is even popular with residents of other parts of the city. To the left of the map, he has marked the lawn between the blocks, where the block's playground is drawn in.
