In Catacumbis
Journey through present-day catacombs of discarded, shattered and anonymous remains. These paintings and print works draw from the history of sacred catacombs and link the forsaken of the past with the neglected of the present. By appealing to the senses through texture and color, prints and paintings in this series, are meant to cause one to reflect upon the repercussions of choices that lead to both small and large scale societal demise. The vandalized, plundered and overgrown disintegrating landscapes teach us to take pause and critically question bureaucratic decision-making and demand our civil rights lest we end up ignored, derelict and forgotten. From sacred catacombs to secular institutions the images suggest the pathos of societies weakened by oppression. These sacred and secular ruins, on the verge of falling into oblivion symbolize sacrifice then and now. Though visually stimulating the images present a sad comment on power structures that lead to exploitation, persecution, deterioration and ultimate death.
City Image
Individual cities have
distinctive qualities. In The Image of the City, Kevin Lynch points out that there are influences on imageability, such as the social meaning of an area, its function, its history, or even its name” (Lynch, 46). Artworks reflect the various cities I have traveled through in the past few years including my hometown, Philadelphia. City structure and environment can energize, invigorate, and motivate or it can have adverse psychological effects on its people. In an interview, sociologist Martina Löw states, “Buildings and places influence courses of action and become interwoven with day-to-day life. Whether positive or negative, each image captures the unique personality of a particular city. Winston Churchill said: “We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us”.
Urbanismo
The Urbanismo series reflects how I experienced Barcelona, Madrid, Seville, Toledo, Granada, Cadaques and Figueres on my trip to Spain in 2010. I realized how much of an effect urban planning has on a city’s character and the characteristics of its’ inhabitants. Before a social structure arises a city must be designed. Clever urban planning is fundamental to the flourishing character of all cities. Kevin Lynch states, “to heighten the imageability of the urban environment is to facilitate its visual identification and structuring” (Lynch, 95). Imageability to Lynch is the “quality in a physical object, which gives it a high probability of evoking a strong image in any given observer” (9). Lynch also stresses the importance of legibility. By this he means “the ease with which its parts can be recognized” and assembled into a logical order (9). Urban planning has a great impact on socialization and people’s relationship to place and space. Proper city planning is necessary for a functional society. In Spain, cities such as Barcelona and Madrid are continually modernizing and developing where as cities such as Toledo and Granada have a more historic charm and less urban development. Pasqual Maragall, Mayor of Barcelona, 1982-1997 stated, “ No one can survive merely by conservation. If there is no new construction, the city cannot stand; not even the old will endure. Each city must find its own formula for combining existing symbols with new ones. Without the latter, antiquity becomes mere repetition.” While traveling, I learned about the transitions these cities underwent from countryside’s filled with Olive trees to populated cities and how they continue to advance. I found that the different structure of each city I visited influenced its overall personality and style.
- Lynch, Kevin, The Image of the City. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1960.
Densities: People and Places
Sprawling and Crowded, Mexico City and its outskirts reveal a vitality that is intriguing to the artist’s eye. Alive with movement and change, this second largest city in the world possesses a population in which 40% of the people live below the poverty line. Nevertheless, what greets the artists’ eye is not simply the density of the poor but the vibrancy of the densities perceived. Teeming with human feeling- anger, sadness, love, joy, hope—the city’s energy pulses as its inhabitants remember what was, struggle with what is and dream of what could be. According to the geographer Yi-Fu Tuan in Space and Place, *“ Ample space is not always experienced as spaciousness, and high density does not necessarily mean crowding…” (51). The meaning of density is linked to a group’s culture and a people’s emotions. Density need not always be associated with spiritual impoverishment. It can create intimacy and excitement, As Tuan points out, “A crowd can be exhilarating” (63). And it can also be nurturing. Mexicans frequently crowd into small houses or even shanties to accommodate the needs of their extended families. This same crowding, however, can inhibit freedom and leave people powerless in the grip of the difficulties it creates: pollution and crime on a societal level; unhealthy living conditions and lack of privacy on an individual level. “Houses have eyes,” Tuan tells us. “Where they are built close together the neighbors’ noises and the neighbors’ concern constantly intrude”(60-61). Intrusive or inclusive, the densities of Mexico City gain intensity from the cultural complexity of the people who live within them. Superimposed on Mexico’s ancient religions and traditions are the faith and customs of its Spanish conquerors. The passion of two worlds unites to shape the city as it is today.
- Tuan, Yi-Fu, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota, 1977.
Deconstructioning Space
" We live in space. There is no space for another building on the lot. The Great Plains look spacious. Place is security, space is freedom: we are attached to one and long for the other" (Tuan, 3). Deconstructing Space is a visual exploration in which place becomes a space as it gradually detaches itself through decay . Traveling off the beaten path, I seek out seemingly desolate structures to record with my cameras. I aim to capture the essences of these places before they disappear and the beauty of transitions that occur as they become space; for space after all as Lama Anagarika Govinda stated, is "the fundamental element of the cosmos.... the all-embracing principle of higher unity. Nothing can exist without space" (QTD. in Hasehurst).
The notions of "space" and "place" are universal to the human condition. Places are often protective, reassuring, and comfortable. Our fondness for familiar places, such as home, workplace, neighborhood, and town or city, keep us rooted. They are reminders, realities to hold on to. Just as we form attachments to people, we form them to place. On the one hand, we need a sense of place in order to thrive. On the other hand, each one of us at times yearns for space. In space there is freedom, and with freedom comes room to create and grow. When the human being "becomes conscious of the infinity of space, he [or she] realises the infinity of consciousness: (QTD. in Hasehurst). In turn, this expansion of conscousness opens up endless directions for our new-found freedom to take. Freendom, however, is a paradoxical state of being. Inevitably creeping into our heightened consciouseness, our experience of the infinite, is our knowledge of human finiteness with its accompanying sense of isolation and emptiness.
Space is without attachment. Once a structure begins to wither or break away it begins to lose the feeling of place as it collapses and becomes one with the landscape. " Space' is more abstract than 'place'. What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better and endow it with value" (Tuan, 6). Marco Marcon, curator of the Australian exhibit " From Space to Place" sums it up as follows:
The relationship between space and place is a complex and ambiguous one. Space is a notion of the highest generality, but seen from the vantage point of concrete human experience, it connotes an abstract potentiality that has not been formed or determined. Place...represents a specific and concrete segment of the spatial continuum laden with meaning and history. Space becomes a place when its abstract and open-ended formlessness is seized upon by an agency- an individual, a community, a people-- who gives it form, a name and a history.
Conversely, then, place turns back into space as we lose our personal, communal and historical connections with it.
By exploring and documenting these places value is given to otherwise discarded landscapes. These disappearing places deserve to be given value. Though there is despair and wreckage, there is also serenity and beauty in the emptiness. Derrrida who coined the phrase " desconstruction" might compare these dying structure to "a parchment on which an earlier manuscript has been erased to make 'clean' surface for a new one" (Glusberg, Ed. 13). The complexities of these structures are not simplified by ruin but made more apparent as they return to landscape to begin new order. Despite these transformations, history remains buried within the walls and grounds. In Ghost in This House, Allison Krauss writes " I'm just a ghost in this house/ I'm shadow upon these walls, as quietly as a mouse/ I haunt these halls" (QTD. in Sceurman " Haunted Places, Ghostly Tales"). Most intriguing is the discovery of these forgotten places. In For Want of the Golden City, Sir Sacheverell Sitwell said, " In the end it is the mystery that lasts and not the explanation. "(QTD. in Sceurman "Introduction") I have found in these abandoned monuments place unknown, history imbedded in the walls, remainders with no voice.
The notions of "space" and "place" are universal to the human condition. Places are often protective, reassuring, and comfortable. Our fondness for familiar places, such as home, workplace, neighborhood, and town or city, keep us rooted. They are reminders, realities to hold on to. Just as we form attachments to people, we form them to place. On the one hand, we need a sense of place in order to thrive. On the other hand, each one of us at times yearns for space. In space there is freedom, and with freedom comes room to create and grow. When the human being "becomes conscious of the infinity of space, he [or she] realises the infinity of consciousness: (QTD. in Hasehurst). In turn, this expansion of conscousness opens up endless directions for our new-found freedom to take. Freendom, however, is a paradoxical state of being. Inevitably creeping into our heightened consciouseness, our experience of the infinite, is our knowledge of human finiteness with its accompanying sense of isolation and emptiness.
Space is without attachment. Once a structure begins to wither or break away it begins to lose the feeling of place as it collapses and becomes one with the landscape. " Space' is more abstract than 'place'. What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better and endow it with value" (Tuan, 6). Marco Marcon, curator of the Australian exhibit " From Space to Place" sums it up as follows:
The relationship between space and place is a complex and ambiguous one. Space is a notion of the highest generality, but seen from the vantage point of concrete human experience, it connotes an abstract potentiality that has not been formed or determined. Place...represents a specific and concrete segment of the spatial continuum laden with meaning and history. Space becomes a place when its abstract and open-ended formlessness is seized upon by an agency- an individual, a community, a people-- who gives it form, a name and a history.
Conversely, then, place turns back into space as we lose our personal, communal and historical connections with it.
By exploring and documenting these places value is given to otherwise discarded landscapes. These disappearing places deserve to be given value. Though there is despair and wreckage, there is also serenity and beauty in the emptiness. Derrrida who coined the phrase " desconstruction" might compare these dying structure to "a parchment on which an earlier manuscript has been erased to make 'clean' surface for a new one" (Glusberg, Ed. 13). The complexities of these structures are not simplified by ruin but made more apparent as they return to landscape to begin new order. Despite these transformations, history remains buried within the walls and grounds. In Ghost in This House, Allison Krauss writes " I'm just a ghost in this house/ I'm shadow upon these walls, as quietly as a mouse/ I haunt these halls" (QTD. in Sceurman " Haunted Places, Ghostly Tales"). Most intriguing is the discovery of these forgotten places. In For Want of the Golden City, Sir Sacheverell Sitwell said, " In the end it is the mystery that lasts and not the explanation. "(QTD. in Sceurman "Introduction") I have found in these abandoned monuments place unknown, history imbedded in the walls, remainders with no voice.
- Hasehurst, Geoff. On Truth and Reality: The Wave structure of Matter. 1997-2005. 31 March 2004 <www.spaceandmotion.com/philosophy-lama-govinda.htm>
- Marcon, Marco. "From Space to Place." Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts: 8 May 2005 <www.pica.org.au/art05/space2place-o5.htm>
- Moran, Mark and Mark Sceurman. Weird U.S.: Your Travel Guide to America's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrerts. New York: Barnes and Noble Publishing, Inc., 2004.
- Tuan, Yi-Fu, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota, 1977.
All Text and Artwork © Nicole Patrice Dul 2015
