Alone. Wandering through a silent and empty city.  The power of balance.  Between emptiness and narration.

Photo by lilypenelope

Photo by lilypenelope

Painting and photos by lilypenelope

Photo by lilypenelope

There I was. In a Silent City. All I could see and perceive were endless stretches of no-one. Where am I going? South? North? Back into the past or running fast towards the future? As I kept walking along Avenue-of-Present-Non-Sense I saw a sign hanging mid-air. "This is Beyond Me" next right turn. Moving apathically I kept wondering what in the heck was this surreal disparaged space I was finding myself in. I frantically took another big breath of air and...air was all I got.
I glanced around scanning the Horizon for any sign of relief but...the city stared back at me.
Photo by lilypenelope

Photo by lilypenelope

Yesterday, as I was cleaning up my office (yes, on a sunday afternoon!!) I came across a couple of old tiny boxes. As you probably already know by now I love old things. Photographs, books, typewriters and even trash I find around. But these boxes were right there, in front of my nose and have never noticed them before. Color pastels and chalks. They are actually my mother's. From when she studied architecture in Zurich back in the days! Then, instead of cleaning the office as planned I started taking pictures of them. And my mind, together with this old objects started wandering around. I so miss doing my job like the "old times", like when studying architecture in LA...pencils, pen, rulers, graphite, erasers, all different types of papers. And my hands, at the end of the day, were all dirty. A sign of a direct contact with my work. I made my hands dirty therefore I was! Ohhh those old times!! When you could smell the coffee scent all over the school. At every time of the day and night. I still smile when thinking about it: with my headphones on, listening to Björk, when I would accidentally hit the mug and the coffee would spread out all over my drawings. First was panic. Then was creativity! I would integrate the stains as part of the project! And I would present the drawing as if those fragrant stains were there since the beginning. Actually they were the starting point of it!! Now things are different. I still draw by hands. Just the preliminary sketch. Then pass it over to my employees who put them in the machine. Yes...the machine. Why bother to build a real model when a friggin machine does it for you? Now I just make my hands dirty for fun. But the "machine" has become a boundary between the emotional relationships between me and the spaces I'm supposed to create. Only the smell of coffee remains. All day. But now if I accidentally hit the mug there is no paper there to welcome those stains. Just a keyboard. And the machine! Photo by lilypenelope

If this wall could talk how many stories would it tell us? How many anectdotes, fragments of lives, urban poems could it narrate? Pieces of juxtaposed realities that daily cross path through the streets. But maybe, that's actually the beauty of walls. Their speechlessness. We can imagine what happens right in front of it. Dream. Or we can take a spray can and make it ours, leaving a trace on it, an image, a word, a drawing. Our story on it. Our story in our city. Aren't we all the writers of our reality? Photo by lilypenelope

It doesn't happen that often that I look at my city from above. Like the "small town Icarus" I went up the hill, went inside the "3rd castle" patio and then I started to look towards the dark horizon. Down not that far there is the lake. Down, meters below, there are 2 other castles. Yet, what strucked me was the beauty of my city from above. Detached from the everyday. Detached from the street level. Detached from those routines that, day after day, create my urban experience-(s). Now, on top of the hill, all I see is a perfectly calm image. Lights softly guide you through the mysterious darkness of the night. As I drove back down a song was playing at the radio. It's words started to fly through the open window... "These streets will make you feel brand new Big lights will inspire you"...
I'm not sure how much my town still inspires me but, many stories have already being written, nothing new appearing on the blank pages of my urban everyday journey but, looking at it from a different perspective yes...those lights inspired me. And made me feel brand new!
Photo by lilypenelope - Bellinzona from above.

Outside from a window all I can see are other windows. Openings. Frames to/for the outside world. Double voyeurism? Hidden behind a tree we look. We dream. Our own thoughts. Our own feelings are framed. Into the window of the unconscious. Photo by lilypenelope

A planned city. Streets, boardwalks, lines, crossroads, buildings and numbers. I wasn't sure where the original old city centre was so, I started walking on "Main Street". A Post Office. A Newstand. A Starbucks. A restaurant owned by an italian family from the neighborhood. A park where young and old people were spending their beautiful saturday afternoon. Yet something was missing. Where were all the stores I remembered being there once? Probably moved to the suburbs. New structures have appeared. And many other left to their own destiny. New and decay. Gentrification and sprawl. Traffic. Yet I found human presence. Man made structures. Geometry and well thought out plans. Where am I going? Where is urbanism going? Photos by lilypenelope

I kept walking as the night followed me like it was my own shadow. I stopped, admiring the beauty of history reflected on the dark water. Then I saw it, the sign. Pont Neuf was right in front of me. My memory flew back in time. When I fell in love. I started dreaming, imagining, improvising new thoughts. That's when a strange sound hit me. Was somebody following me? Or was it simply the sound of the night with is dark presence, kidnapping my soul? Photo by lilypenelope

Inside the Versailles Palace. Beautifully adorned. Maybe too much. Thinking about the inner reality. Keeping in mind the outer one. Rich vs poor. Kingdoms vs. humanity. Details. Beautiful colors, incredible works of art. Yet keeping in mind what happend outside this realm. Photos by lilypenelope

"The Subversion of Images" as the title of the exhibition I saw at the Centre Pompidou. In this photo just a subversion of an image! Image depicting a fragment of the Centre Pompidou! Photo by lilypenelope

City are such complexes artifacts. We know most of their [hi]-stories. We know most of their anecdotes. I love, when in a city, to explore its deepest meaning[s], it's multiple faces, facades, smells, sounds, and any other detail that, ultimately, creates my comprehension of it. There is nothing though, in my opinion, more fascinating than roofs. As I always say, rooftops are the city new beginning. A new groundfloor. A new history.
Looking at these two particular pictures I took from the top of the Centre Pompidou the word "uncanny" comes to my mind. It's true, each neighborhoods, each streets, each building, has a precise history, in time, in politics, in society. But what about the single inner stories? What about the inner daily chapters of these buildings? What is the [hi]-story line in their vertical presence within the urban context?
I love just to stare at these constructions and make up stories. Uncanny stories. About the people who live in there. About the people who, once they step out in the "outer" world, they step out from the city inner litterary composition. Photos by lilypenelope

Photo by lilypenelope

Photo by lilypenelope