Life as a Glass House

A globe-trotting performance artist invites the world into her Williamsburg apartment, where every room is a stage.

Photo courtesy the Glasshouse Project

Lital Dotan starts her day the same way almost every morning: by “cleansing the body”—what most of us would call “washing up”—and then making her bed. Or rather, she stuffs her sheets and pillows inside a plastic vacuumed-sealed container—“the Space Bag”—and places it atop a display pedestal. It becomes, like everything else in her life, a work of art.

This is the first step of Dotan’s routine, written down in blue and black marker on a small whiteboard easel in her kitchen. Sometimes she accomplishes everything on the schedule, sometimes she doesn’t. Sometimes she updates the routine, crossing out or rephrasing tasks and squeezing in additional items within the schedule. Other times, she doesn’t.

Dotan’s “Daily Routine” has not changed since she first wrote it upon arriving in Brooklyn:

08:00 – Cleansing the Body

Riding the Space Bag

09:00 – Practicing Yoga

10:00 – Daily Transformation

Opening the Door

12:00 – Stepping Outside

18:00 – Entering the Booth

St…