The Weight of Glass

I spent an hour this morning trying to fix a loose hinge on my kitchen cabinet. It was a small, annoying task that I had been putting off for weeks. As I tightened the screw, I found myself staring out the window at the neighboring apartment block. It is just a grid of windows, really, but at that hour, everyone was turning on their lamps. It felt like watching a thousand tiny, private lives flicker into existence all at once. We live so close to one another, stacked in these vertical boxes, yet we are mostly strangers to the people behind the walls. We share the same skyline and the same evening air, but our stories rarely touch. It is strange how we build these massive, solid monuments to ourselves, only to fill them with such quiet, solitary routines. Do you ever look at a city at night and wonder if the person in the window across from you is also looking back, trying to find a sense of belonging in the glow?

Siew Bee Lim has captured this feeling perfectly in the image titled Buildings of UOB Plaza and Six Battery Road. The way the light clings to the steel and glass makes the whole city feel like a living, breathing thing. Does this view make you feel connected to the city, or does it make you feel small?