Invisible Cities
Every city, every town and village can become invisible. The spirit music that plays gently through the streets and passages of any dwelling can be silenced by the tinnitus of everyday life. Italo Calvino in Invisible Cities uses the poetic to explore the labyrinth of the city; sightlines permeate in ways only available to the imagination. The gridded, hard shiny surfaces of the modern city or the textures and patina of age are equally hard and unforgiving and divide just as easily.
This project or journey through an invisible city is a personal one, as all journeys are, even those shared with friends or loved ones, the experiences that one shares leave traces in different ways. The city is not singular, as it was for Marco Polo in the original, nor is there any one person to communicate with, as Polo had with Kublai Kahn. The walls of my cities echo my own experience and impressions from my journeys real and imagined.
I have used images where Calvino used words, images maintain sightlines and can perpetuate division. Each image is an envelope, inside which is written something intimate and personal that I may someday hope to read.
Mark Hall 2022