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in february 2022, the memories of beautiful streets vibrant with color and life i brought from madrid got involved in a violent frontal clash against the seemingly abandoned place where i landed. to foreigners not yet used to mid-sized cities in the usa, richmond, virginia, presents the dismal appearance of a wasteland, where entire blocks of closed commercial spaces and infinite streets that haven’t seen a soul outside a car in decades reach in every direction. in this environment, i thought, the possibilities of finding a fellow living organism seemed improbable.
absorbed in a fearful confusion, my arrival marked the beginning of a search for signs of life in a place that seemed to have forgotten its meaning long ago. nevertheless, very soon i was ¿satisfied? to discover that, indeed, there is a strong undercurrent of life running wild through this city’s empty streets. streams of pure madness and distilled wackiness sweep through richmond in flooding tides of feverish compositions, the perfect mix of serendipity and a hidden human hand.
so far, the majority of the city’s population i have encountered has been abandoned objects, and, occasionally, abandoned people. this series is about the former. presented as a collection of lost & found objects, i walk the viewer along the main three elements present in richmond’s streets to paint a portrait of an average city in the us. ultimately, this series is an ode to the us’s incredibly messed up urban planning and the exploration of a path to come to terms with it through its buildings, nature and garbage.
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here, as anywhere else, architecture acts as canvas where, in light brushtrokes, the city’s inner life draws its unfolding reality. and so, animation lights the streets up when reflections of fleeting sunbeams bring movement to otherwise still corners, and give them character when people project their joys and hardships on their walls.
richmond’s soul lies intertwined in its industrial past and its tight network of alleys and backstreets. the city hints at hectic activity, yet keeps it hidden from foreign eyes behind several layers of brick, fake wood and the occasional car. it presents only an empty façade until the viewer learns to interpret its moods and read between lines.
among all the mysterious signs of activity that an attentive viewer can find sprinkled around the city, nature, in all its forms of life, death and disintegration, is also very much present.
as the james’s white waters speed up, weathering boulders and islands across richmond’s heart, bringing forth all of a wild river’s creative power, all manners of life grow and thrive in parks and streets -although animals seem to systematically do less thiving among the cars-.
other than the signs of activity that can be discerned in buildings and parks, there is one more element that betrays richmond’s secret life scene in all its wacky glory.
in the adventurous environment of the downtown area, naked of shops and cafés during the day, and half-stripped of streetlights during the night, with pavements uneven to the point that strolling becomes a dangerous sport; many people prefer the safety of the mall for their daily pursuits. yet, they leave traces of their passing through these streets on their way somewhere else.
trash. leftovers of past endeavors that still talk of human desires, contradictions and daydreaming within city limits. reminiscences of lives come and gone, of which we only have a few lonely marks of what they ate, drank, wore or did to amuse themselves while in the wasteland.
