Rooms That Hold Everything

When I first stumbled into my Tokyo apartment after the long flight from Berlin—still wearing the same clothes I’d boarded in, barely present—I stood in the doorway and nearly cried. A bed, a sink, a television, and about eighteen inches of floor space between them. I’d given up a proper flat in Berlin for this. The math felt punishing.

But photographer Won Kim would tell you I had it comfortable.

Kim spent time in Japan, Finland, Australia, Sri Lanka, the United States, and the Netherlands photographing people who live in the smallest rooms on earth. His project Enclosed: Living Small profiles subjects named Ai, Mendis, and Hanad—but the rooms themselves are the real subject. Narrow, dark, stacked with everything a person owns pressed into a space that doesn’t accommodate the concept of ownership.

What interested Kim wasn’t the compression alone but how people respond to it. Some rooms are very spartan, probably occupied by people who only stay a short time, he said. But others are crammed with belongings—improvised bookshelves, wardrobes, decoration. The distinction matters: some people pass through a space, and some people turn it into evidence that they exist. You can read the difference in under a second.

I stayed in that Tokyo apartment for months. By the end I’d stopped resenting the size and started noticing something else—that when there’s no room to spread out, everything you keep is a deliberate choice. Smaller, but more honest.