10. 05. – 17. 05. 2019
The Steamship Project Space, London
Curated by Anna Chiarini
In Calvino’ s book, ‘The Invisible Cities’, Marco Polo meets The Great Kublai Khan and recounts to him the beautiful, impossible cities he has traveled through.
‘Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars does continue listening to the young Venetian with greater attention and curiosity than he shows any other messenger or explorer of his’
And that’s because Marco tells of the reasons why humans decide to create and gather in such places, reasons beyond any discomfort and crisis.
Cities are an exchange place, but it’s not only of material goods. It’s an exchange place of memories, desires, ideas, signs of a language. The invisible city is the one that used to be there and the one that hasn’t been built yet, is the city we dream to live in and the one hiding under our very own eyes. The invisible city is the one that can be seen solely through an individual’s experience and the one only a collectivity can realize. The invisible city is the one that goes unobserved to its commuters, and the one the fresh eyes of a traveler can see. The invisible city is what hides underneath the asphalt and what floats above it. The invisible city is the network that unites its citizens.
Will the invisible city crumble or will it escape the termites gnawing?
Text: Anna Chiarini