Photographer Shows the Different Lives of People in Identical Apartments

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In 2008, a Romanian photographer came up with a project that reveals the different lives of people living in 10 identical apartments. Bogdan Gîrbovan was living in a single-room apartment on the 10th floor of a Bucharest apartment building built in 1966 during communist times. The building, like most in Romania, was built with plain, identical apartments placed on top of the other in order to create widespread equality. While looking around his own small space, Gîrbovan wondered how the other nine residents residing below him lived. He came up with “10/1” to show the 10 lives in one room:

Gîrbovan explains that “10/1” is a sociological survey of the 10 identical dwellings and the people who live in them. He took photos of each room and its residents from the exact same angle. The images are strangely compelling, as each one reveals a completely different social class and reflects each resident’s history.