O parte istorie
A tale of an imagination
can visual research support notions of personal definitions of urban experience
The following passages can be seen as a research tool. I have embarked now on a larger scale of walks through areas of unknown terrain under the umbrella of London. I question the semiotics of the spaces I am forming and remaking through systematic footstones. An archive of resent and homage to unknown future:
Void space
Memory is alive, breathing and feeling the chill of the air
History repeats
And what frustration when memory fails
To avoid such failure memory invents the void
Forming disparate fragments for what it fears may have been lost.
A memory that lingers through frozen concrete
A thought of a softness that falls in rotting leaves
The city does not conceal such sadness
Rain that hurts as it cuts cold sunken flesh
Possibility of an encounter in another city
We wait
Waiting for a note of memory to return on a pigeon’s wing
We sat in the empty swimming pool with the frog
It watched us as we confused sentiments and stepped on each others broken shoes
A sadness that hollowed your jaw
The light falls now on a tomb to possibility
The room was dark, small, a cage for dreams
Container of unspoken secrets that the bus driver swears not tell
Printed now in the news as to a fallen army of smashed youth
Pill packets protect us from your mind
This city knows no fear; it marches towards a plastic future
Trees line the streets that were supposed to be our home
That day we walked the length of the field we feared
Socks damp with discontent
Who walks through me
I wonder where you might hide as I see another fallen tree
Dead to the notion of hope still and imperfect
A dream we share that still lies between pages of a buried page
a mouse has eaten your picture hidden under the carpet
that to know cannot comfort
a love that skips through; a happiness of the past that reeks now in this sordid corner of a failed romance
he is cold. A harshness that pains and toils
alone now; a ship wreck of a love that has yet to sail and sits in a foreign climb
who hears this silence blasted through mundane song of another
I miss
A tenderness that waits and holds me strong; silent but strong
Alert
The clock has stopped
I can walk now
With the thought of the memory to pace
A hurried foot fall through lonely plain
Who remembers the frog who still waits our return
The swimming pool is filling with fallen leaves
The candle still burns
Dripping wax over silk untouched silk sheets
A march
And then there was a bus journey
The destination was not marked
The view from either side of the window was lined with avenues of apartments; lives in small boxes to which this tale is of no consequence, and still for the memory of an existence it continues and repeats; forms to then disappear.
A walk that lingers through dim candle light in search of a home; a place to rest and to feel the weight of such journey cease to concern. Such lightness as the body submerges to the fall of the descent.
The end has no celebration
The road has always been long
A lady places dead flowers by smashed graves
A prayer that is heard by deaf ears bringing a chill to warm comforting rooms
The house has a stillness that is disturbed by his presence as he stands silent
The hat remains on the stand; his coffee still undisturbed
A cigarette unlit will never be smoked
A smouldering atmosphere warns us
We walk on
Memory still paces
The notion of the performance of a building ; the theatre; as the actor and the actors as a mere imitation as to what the building strives to create; let us debate the role of who is the audience? The building. Its users. The street? The dwellers? The rhythm of daily life and the impact the perception of the individual has to allow the character of a building to form and function and flourish; is it possible to curate a warm space; what are atmosphere in spaces if no projection of the emotional content which is added by individuals?
A ghost space?
How can a conversation be scripted ? a conversation that allows social function and allows there to be a resonance that echoes in the space; again and again..
A space designed to conduct an enquiry? To curate and create space of tangible ability to allow some sort of function to begin to exist; then how can such experience form a documentation of the daily lived experience? Are we now in the realms of spatial research/ how can a photograph translate as a visceral experience?
The visceral experience of architecture which can then be translated in some form of expression into an image for even to choreography; but what is lost and what is made? How far can a space encourage a spatial visceral reaction which allow the totality of eth experience of the body in that space and time to be notated within the confines of the limitations of the human inability to express rational with intent made.
Towards a research
Ideas of a working approach: the typography of potential future city
How can a city be understood> why do we feel the need to comprehend urban form and is there a real purpose to a creative understanding and interpretation of urban life?
Does the city exist? Can the city be interpreted as a generational construct of personal narratives over lapping to allow some form of reality to take shape?
How far does the approach of individuals towards urban form allow for urban progress> for example can one really compare Hausmanisation with Atget> and if these are added together; what impression do they generate of an identity?
All representation of urban life is specific to time and locality so can a generic tool kit ever be a true impression of the notion urban progress when in reality minor individual projects will only add up to significance layer upon layer.
- Field practice: the camera and the daily life: how far can a camera be used to make archival evidence as to the notion of daily life and can this then generate material for an archive of urban form which ultimately then becomes a social tool for collective urban memory
- reassembling the norm: the relay of daily experience in relation to social use and potential ‘usefulness’ in the schema of regeneration and creative place making
- tool kit for spatial exploration; how can creative exercise allow a deeper relationship to form with the city and generate the idea of the personal and the ‘normal’?
- the viable norm of reality: what is the city> how can photography generate a collective schema for the urban life
- generative form of failure: how can participoary planning become deep rooted success for the ‘new’ city development
- an environment to narrate a history.. how can all of the above be displayed in such a way that allows the individual to form an approach to the urban life? Exhibition and seminar series TBC. The importance of sharing research for future proofing of the positive urban experience
- a narration of spatial experience. How individuals experience the city and how these experiences are reflected and how such reflections can be explored / exploited to generate a scheme for urban development
Methodology: thoughts towards a potentail walk:
The camera
The spaces
The city
The conversations
The documentation
The books
The films
The everyday
: ‘What role can the physical experience of walking play within the discovery of urban photographic forms?
Urban re:passages 
Dear Beatrice,
Darshana Vora suggested I get in touch with you as you seem to be doing some work which could fit perfectly with an exhibition I am trying to put up.
I’m interested in the relationship between artists and the city, how their work is defined by it and vice versa, what elements strikes them, moves them, inspires them…etc. I have had a look at your blog and liked it very much, I find your approach very interesting and refreshing.
To explain the project in more detail, it will run over three months (December -February) and each month, three artists or more will be exhibiting their work, depending on how each person can make use of the available space. The place in question is actually a bar located around Old St, but the owners are keen to run it as a gallery space, where people come and enjoy the artwork but can also have a drink and a bite. We are hoping to create a space which people will come to because of the atmosphere (hopefully build a community of like-minded artists) as well as to regularly check out the exhibitions.
I have also planned to run events alongside the exhibitions, screenings, performances, walks…etc which will tie in with the theme. I want to have artists who explore the relationship they/we have with the city. I’ve left the theme quite open so people can bring their own interpretation and I don’t want to be limiting by giving a very specific theme. I’m still unsure whether it will be about London only or perhaps three different cities (one for each month) but because of the timescale, I might have to stick to London.
Let me know if you might be interested in participating in the project, below is a brief explanation of what we are trying to do.
Kindest regards,
Stephanie.