from Smithsonian Magazine
Tunnel Visionary
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from New York Foundation for the Arts Quarterly - Fall 2003
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If one can be allowed to stereotype, then it can only be a New Yorker who is willing to devote a better part of her life to documenting urban ruin and dereliction as heritage. As Julia Solis new book (see a selection of images here) and web-site, Dark Passage, attest, it is both fascinating and mind-boggling to be engaged in this seemingly Herculean project of contemporary urban archaeology.
Julia Solis is also the Founder and Executive Director of Ars Subterranea which seeks to promote a greater understanding and awareness of the historic urban fabric of New York by organising creative projects. Aptly, Ars Subterranea has as its tag-line:"The Society for Creative Preservation". One of the recently completed project is a photographic presentation, entitled The Garden of Crumbling Delights, which is both an effort "to document America's rapidly vanishing ruins" and "a celebration of the beauty inherent in architectural decay" at the same time.
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I really like the Garden of Crumbling Delights. The photos elicit a strong feeling of what Julia Solis termed as soul marks. To quote her: "These places contain the residue of the many souls that have passed through over the years."
ReplyDeleteAlso, very interesting in an ironic way that by taking photos, what these artist-photographers do can be seen as a preservation of sorts of the urban phenomenons of ruins and decay.