1. The Invisible Cities Project: the City of Kitolia
The illustrated story inspired by ''Invisible Cities'' book by Italo Calvino.
When I arrived in Kitolia, I felt ethereal, as if I was only part of the past. The sky was bright on that day. My shoes were wet. Puddles on the street were the only remains of the storm that passed through the town only moments ago. Most people seemed not to notice overflowing canals and closed pedestrian walks. Anyway, since the oil price crash, that drove fuel prices to negligible amounts two years ago, hardly anyone was walking to commute. Soon after my arrival, I noticed that some people were behaving rather bizarrely, trying to climb nearby buildings and trees. It must have been some mass event or a local custom.
Intrigued, I talked to some residents and found out that all Kitolians suffered from unexplained headaches. It started with unexplained blizzards showing in the sky, even on sunny days. Some citizens found that the world was getting more and more blurry to them, kind of distant and less familiar. The headaches escalated each day. Medical experts announced a migraine epidemic in the city. The cause remained unknown. Strangely, not everything kept in line with the diagnosis. Residents did not respond to prescribed treatments. The only way for them to soothe the pressure building up in their heads was to climb. residents felt an unintelligible urge to go up - up the stairs, up the ladder, on a treetop or on a mountain peak, the higher and closer to sky, the better.
A man told me that the level of water surrounding Kitolia is rising again. History repeats itself. Many Kitolias got submerged by water. This one is no different. The pressure rises in the city causing the strange headaches to its citizens. Soon the streets will become rivers and then it will be too late, the man concluded and walked away.
2. The Tenement Study Project
Drawn analysis of one of Glasgow's Tenements:
2 North Gardner Street Tenement, Glasgow
3. The Narratives of the Unseen
Thought-provoking photography and drawing: The Extinguished Lights.
The Extinguished Lights
Photography has a unique ability to keep the past alive. Documenting things in decay is always making me feel like seeing pictures and moments, others might not be given an opportunity to see. Through my photographs of Old Edinburgh Tram Depot and Edinburgh lighthouse and drawing of abandoned lighthouse Gora Szwedow in Hel, Poland, I am presenting buildings, which once used to navigate people.
Now their lights have extinguished, so they stand pointing at the skies, slowly becoming objects of the past.
Couldn't we keep them in the presence?
Their form makes them markers of the space, points of reference on the city-canvas. Verticality characterises all three chosen images, emphasising their linear journey through time - from the beginning to an end.
The alternative story could be more like their sections - circular.
