February 9, 2012 at 4:35pm
February 7, 2012 at 3:31pm
Since its closure in 1988 decay has transformed the prison on the island of Procida into a space inhabited by many patterns. A bizarre beauty reveals itself through the stark contrast between this space of patterns and the prisons dark past. This photo film focuses on the impermanence of that which is regarded as solid and unchangeable - a prison slowly transforms and past human actions dissolve.
3:24pm
TODAY - WE WOULD CELEBRATE YOUR BIRTHDAY, PAPA, BUT YOU ARE SOMEWHERE ELSE THAN ON THIS PLANET. I AM THINKING OF YOU!
3:18pm
Via Miracoli →
Porosity is the inexhaustible law of life in this city.
Porosity results not only from the indolence of the southern artisan,
above all, from the passion for improvisation,
which demands that space and opportunity be preserved at any price.
Walter Benjamin & Asja Lacis, 1925 - Thought-Image: Naples
—-
Porosity is the term Benjamin and Lacis used to explain the city in their essay of 1925 on Naples. Knowing the city well this essay, in particular their observation of the city as porous and the passion for improvisation, sounded very familiar to me. Porous is the stone Naples is built upon, the architecture certainly is porous but porosity could also be used to explain the Neapolitan attitude towards life.
Via Miracoli is situated in the Sanità - a densely populated quarter in the heart of Naples in South Italy. Via Miracoli is a typical Neapolitan stone cobbled narrow street, lined with tall old buildings where traditionally at the bottom the Basso (street level flat) is situated. The plaster of these house walls are falling down or seem temporarily fixed or not yet finished - this is not always clearly to distinguish… Layers of announcements, countless nails and and staples, religious shrines and washing lines are stuck to those walls, above all messages of all kinds creating intriguing patterns. There is a fruit and vegetable shop and a Pizzeria and Via Miracoli also is home to the one and only cemetery candle maker in the city. It’s a street bustling with pedestrians, cars and scooters. It is noisy and rather hectic.
The aim of the project is a depiction of Via Miracoli that encompasses the many elements and facets of this micro cosmos, where the ordinary and the known becomes extra ordinary. People are not the centre of this project; it is rather their interaction with the surrounding territory they are living in. It is the almost symbiotic relationship between the urban environment and the people that forms the focus of this work.
I am inviting the viewer on a journey to follow the street as if looking through a magnifying glass; to discover the intriguing detail of the normally un-noticed, banal and the everyday object embedded in an ancient city. This work is a visual poem - an homage to Naples.
January 24, 2012 at 3:33pm
Dayanita Singh exhibits in London →
January 13, 2012 at 4:34pm
1:03pm
January 11, 2012 at 4:48pm
4:33pm
The Credo
Do you believe in the camera, the lens, the filter, the tripod and the meters of all light? James Broughton - Seeing the Light
