http://reroute.c3.hu/
Having examined much of the body of sociological writing about the city, a part
of contemporary artistic research has singled out the urban context, and its rapid
mutations, as an important source of information with which to read the transformation
of a complex territory, and interpret the thick web of visual perceptions that
city inhabitants are subjected to on a daily basis. Both the sociologist Max Weber
and anthropologist Ulf Hannerz theorized the urban experience as a sequence of
discontinuities which the subject consumes through a continous accumulation of
rapidly changing images. This notion implies a work in progress that is particularly
apparent in the social geographical contexts of many contemporary cities.
Starting from a similar state of disorientation which inevitably follows from a loss of reference points, Re:route, a project by Dominic Hislop and Miklós Erhardt, investigates the perception of a specific urban space from the point of view of recent immigrants. Re: route is a modular project, composed of a series of mental maps, photographs of Turin and short, written comments. All the material was produced by foreigners who had arrived in this specific urban environment not more than two years ago. In the realisation of the project, the two artists used a participative methodology based on dialogue, relationship and the view of the "other", all means that engender respect for the subjectivity of the individual, whilst at the same time emphasizing the plurality of gazes and experiences consumed in one urban landscape.
Taking a specific geographic location, a city whose social fabric has been altered considerably in the last decade by the presence of "citizens" originating from other countries, Dominic Hislop and Miklós Erhardt initiated an anomalous retracing of the urban context. Over the "ordinary" vision of the city, as perceived by Italian inhabitants, the artists laid the "extraordinary" vision of those who have lived there for a short time, but are not tourists. Through this reversal, the urban context inevitably presents itself with unfamiliar spaces, alternative routes, different centres and generates processes which make the experience of "place" clearly visible as an inner, subjective gaze from which to find the coordinates, determine the reference points, and remap the space within which we position ourselves.
Lisa Parola
curator, art critic and founding member of Turin based public art collective,
a.titolo.