Christiana
Caro

This That Region

Life is not a walk across an open field. - Russian Proverb



This is a series based on looking contrasted with its opposite: blindness. Some images refer to reflection, others suggest views seen through the lens, including binoculars or telescopes. Still others recall the disembodied fragments of dreams.

In Florence I set out walking towards gardens, in search of perspective. A way to begin looking, seeing. Thinking about the senses: of touch, hearing, smell and sight. I met Andrea Matteini, who is blind. We visited an exhibition of 3-dimensional "tactile" photographs. The images in his mind's eye appear as if through binoculars, as if he is looking through to something else, so he told me.

Walking, looking, looking, talking, listening, touching, feeling, tasting, thinking, smelling (rose garden). I stop to smell the roses. Circumference. Smell, sight. I walk through the garden and am aware of doing this. I find a secret pathit is an official and repeatable discovery, dependable, but only in small parts. The whole can never be revealed at once. Perspectival drawing is a farce that establishes man as all-seeing center, presupposing that he can partake of the land in one viewing, standing still, in time.


Rather than going all the way through it.