Tuesday, March 4, 2008

poetics of space

A few pictures I've gathered over the past year (of space), & some thoughts to accompany them (the poetics :)



In a classroom in an Ugandan orphanage, dreams quietly crescendo from wall to wall, swinging humbly in an alphabetical whisper of one-letter prayers.




S
pace of the mind.
Knowledge is one of the greatest archistructures known to man, albeit metaphysical. Some of the Ugandan schoolteachers we (Fount of Mercy) met believed the path to a national hope's fruition lay in their youth's education. But how can these visionaries expand their libraries, when the availability of books is paltry in their own country? This sub-modest collection of schoolbooks sitting on a rugged frame of wood and chicken wire is wealth and riches to these children beyond our American imaginations- we, being accustomed to throwing out books past their vogue, libraries and bookstores overflowing with an abundance of paperbacks and thoughts. We can share our wealth.




One of the most beautiful spaces I have encountered in New York City. On a summer walk from Soho to the Lower East Side, I stumbled across this trove of oddities. This is my vision of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man's basement room- but not as glum... Lamps, bulbs, light fixtures of all kinds spanning the decades rested their rusty limbs just footsteps from the southern corner of Houston and Bowery. A collection of preserved specimens sat in a shadowy corner of the room in jars, undulating in size according to the beast it held. The glassy vessels caught the sleepy income of light trickling in through a dusty windowpane, illuminating and casting shadows among the delicate carcasses. The shopkeeper was nowhere in sight, so I snuck some pictures to remember the moment and the light...





My friend was visiting the city
and was staying at an artist's loft in Williamsburg. This is like.. a little opening created by the building and its neighbors. The light was incredible that day, but the weather was freezing!!!




And sometimes...
I feel the greatest space can be the space between human hearts.
(this photo is sideways)