There is a dynamic balance in a city – one that’s in constant flux. From one day or season to the next the geometry is changing – coupled with the constant movement of objects within and you have an ever changing panoply of material to experience
These images ponder the shape of the city and how best to portray it. Not just the geometry of the space but the passage through it – a combination of the shape and the experience of it. The emotion of interacting and living within it.
In a recent conversation I made an off hand comment about the shape of the city, then immediately realized how important the shape of the city really is to me. (Funny how the really important stuff comes out of your sub-conscious when you least expect it).
In pondering the shape and how best to portray it – it’s not just the static Euclidean geometry of the space but the passage through it that matters to me. Some combination of the shape and the experience of it. If I could I would include the tactile and aural elements too – but for now I’ll stick with the part I’m most familiar with – the visual.
I’ve been considering some kind of continuous moving collage of blurred elements but not just linear smears. There have to be irregular elements that emerge at random from pauses in the viewing or moments of interest that dominate the view.
Scale of the perspective is important too – I think something slightly smaller than adult size – say how the scale of the city would appear to a small child. Everything is larger to a kid – distances are greater, time is longer. There is grandeur inherent in our youthful gaze – a fresh newness resulting from our innocence. What are these mysterious and wonderful things we see all around us.
This is what I seek in the shape of the city.
My studio was flooded out in the huge rain storm we had in Toronto two weeks ago. It was heartbreaking to say the least. Last night I began going through the several boxes of papers that were soaked in the flood. Much of it is correspondence from the past 30 years that I’ve been saving. I’ve hardly made any headway – its a slow delicate process trying to save hand written letters still in their envelopes.
In there, were letters from five different people who are no longer alive. Reading little snatches of these, it was like nothing had changed. One moment we’re alive and well, the next we’re not. This is so profoundly difficult to comprehend. We relate to our friends and family on a constant basis and there is an assumption that tomorrow when we want to do it again, they will still be there. And yet, we are not that permanent.
When I received those letters, I never considered at this time, this would be all I’d have left, to indicate there had once been an intelligent loving person in my world.
While I don’t specifically photograph people in my work, I am attempting to capture the result of their actions – the dynamic of their passage – within the context of a city. Aside from letters and photographs, there is precious little remaining from our passage, giving any indication of who we once were.