The Urban Drift Projects
The Urban Drift series grew out of the artist’s fascination with the ways in which urban environments reflect cultural and historical realities. As more and more of humanity lives within cities, the organic flow of contemporary life in urban spaces visually embodies aspects of our varied societies. Histories of power relations, social attitudes and economic networks are all imprinted onto the landscape of city centres and neighbourhoods, yet even within today’s megacities, one finds a persistence of the human scale. One feels hopeful in observing little details and moments while walking through them.
Urban Drift is based on casual movement. There is never a pre-determined message to be illustrated. The direction of the drift is both physical and mental, evolving through observation and thought as the walk unfolds. Each city, with its culture, history and active life, carries its own ambience. The scenes are discovered partly by chance, but also by following a conceptual structure and route that both emerge in thinking about each city and its society. The books adhere strictly to topographic and temporal sequence in order to maintain a sense of being located, hoping to trigger a flow of thoughts in the viewer, just as the artist allowed image sequences and meanings to take form through walking.
Central European Centre for Photography, Bratislava, Slovakia, October 2023
The exhibition brings together an interpretation of the multiple series as composite mural prints that aim to capture the topographic nature of the project, the movement through the streets and spaces. The selection highlights underlying meanings that emerged in the process of walking and pondering the cultural and economic histories that were embedded into the environment.
The Urban Drift series of small volumes, (available from the artist) include:
Kde je sláva? (Where’s the glory?)
Guangzhou Wedding
Havana Tourist
A Few Days in Osaka
Shinjuku Gardens
Korean Holiday
Mexican Walls
Berlin: ‘Der Rote Saal”
Croatian Proscenium
.