This project explored how social interactions are affected by the displacement of the common activity of watching television with family on a Sunday afternoon from the living-room to the front garden and into public view.

 

We watched the only programme we could get a signal for, an American Football game, something we wouldn’t normally watch. Most of us learned more about the sport from my partner’s dad than we’d ever previously known.

 

A dog walker and a child went past; the man seemed to deliberately not look at us. I wondered whether he was trying not to intrude in our ‘private’ family gathering or trying not to cause his own embarrassment. But the young girl had a good look. Later, from the kitchen window when everything had been moved back inside, I saw them returning, the girl was pointing at the now empty lawn and I caught her eye, she seemed impressed that something that had looked so settled an hour ago had now vanished.