The seat by the door
In the feature image, the wheelchair is located in a niche, by the entry door of a hospital clinic, for use by a handicapped person to move around, and/or to be used while waiting in that specific location, for someone to be wheeled out of the hospital … an institutional but still agreeable micro event encounter.
The context of seats by the door, whether residential, institutional, etc. and their location: whether indoor or outdoor, will produce different layouts, different types of seats, and different interpretations of their intended use, to wit:
![sofa gate keeper](https://www.culturalweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/DSC0153-copie-e1481039353880.jpg)
The cheery Xmas lights frames the porch sofa placed by the lace curtained window, but close enough to the door to act as the surrogate gate-keeper of that rather gloomy façade … hence perhaps the avoidance of impertinent encounters!
![two benches](https://www.culturalweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/IMG_0489-copie-e1481039384265.jpg)
The long flat bench by the door is for outdoor consumption of store-bought food; the molded slat bench by the tree is for public sunning, waiting, reading … the fellow at the end of the flat bench is soaking in the sun, far from the entry door but still with a risk of a reprobating look.
![benches at park "entrance"](https://www.culturalweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/IMG_1185-copie-e1481039411405.jpg)
The green foliage archway at this park entrance harbors three benches … some folk will favor their in-between situation … and the shade. At a respectable distance from each other, the benches require a special effort to seek the micro event of a sympathetic encounter.
![back to back benches](https://www.culturalweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/IMG_0440-copie.jpg)
Two back to back benches, located just outside the entry to a public market, don’t preclude face to face exchange by users, strategically sitting at one end for ease of moving legs around. Talk of an encounter point experience!
![outdoor seating area](https://www.culturalweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/IMG_2412-copie.jpg)
The outdoor seating areas of coffee places usually have their access located by the place entry door for ease of supervision. Their street-side is usually well delimited to prevent non-consuming traffic from slinking in.
Camera mediated micro events.
Daily activities that put us on automatic pilot may occasionally provide a micro event recording opportunity … as long as the camera is right along, which presumes an interest in such micro encounter points experience … to wit:
![coffee shop table top](https://www.culturalweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/IMG_1357-copie.jpg)
Arriving at a special coffee place table, I semi-automatically place on it my folding umbrella and taxi driver cap … only to note, once seated, that they are keeping company, in a visually interesting way, with a sprig of green in a glass of water already on the table. Simply irresistible!
![kitchen sink encounter](https://www.culturalweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/IMG_1287-copie.jpg)
Yes … that is my kitchen sink drain on the left bottom of the image … and these are elements of my cat feeding equipment full of water and waiting to be washed. I simply can’t imagine this as a conscious composition … chance placing is basic to this colorful assembly of items, turning it into a micro encounter event.
![dresses at a flea market](https://www.culturalweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/IMG_1298-copie.jpg)
Dresses at a flea-market … hanging upright, but with a propensity for leaning at a micro encounter event angle!
With my best wishes to the reader for a happy holiday season and healthy and peaceful new year!
Credit all images Maurice Amiel
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