“Berlin, Dublin, Lisbon, Rome, but also Amager, Aalborg and Aarhus.
The text reminiscences from the different cities tell about the development in the world and its cityscapes, where everything is always temporary and changing. They also testify to gentrification, for example in the inner city of Rome. The flagship stores of modern capitalism’s corporate stores have taken over retail space that used to offer ordinary necessities of life instead of Prada and Gucci. But in some places, the facades of the former shops remain as traces of a bygone everyday life.
With the right gaze or the right amount of light, these text images appear as suddenly appearing shadows against the background. The texts give the passer-by unfulfilled promises of charcuterie, flowers, bread, groceries, tobacco, etc. As faint markings on doors and windows on facades, where in the near or distant past there was a shop and welcomed customers.
The book’s sober black-and-white images point to the prevalence of the ‘dead’ semi-resolved texts in urban spaces – and the fairly uniform appearance that characterizes them regardless of geographical location. At the same time, the entropic decay can perhaps be compared to the texts left to us by now-disappeared cultures; The inscriptions of the Roman Empire, which are still found around the cityscape of Rome, or the Nordic rune stones and rock carvings”
