This drawing is taken from a series investigating urban expressions , urbatopia from the ancient
world to the future. The drawings use a technique called ‘traitillism’ and feature a second layer of
invisible ink which. Revealed in UV light, this represents the soul of the city. Depicted here is the
Japanese island of Hashima (commonly called Gunkanjima meaning Battleship Island), a coal
mining centre, known as the most dense city worldwide which was abandoned in the 1974.
Through a dialogue between the architecture of
man and nature, the artworks will help to re-question the position of man
within the city as a global identity, abstract and even elusive. This position
is equivalent to the 3 periods / attitudes that Zygmunt Bauman defines:
Pre-modern :
utopia of the game warden, defendant of the natural balance.
Modern :
gardener wanting to organize his space, submitting nature to an order he
decides
Contemporary :
utopia of the hunter who kills until his carnier is full. The flight
forward that does not fear deregulation.
The artwork has won the Architecture Drawing Prize 2020 ( handdrawn category) by the Soane's museum of London.
Link to the video exploring the artwork and the original site: https://youtu.be/GAuqdhmYlBo
Peom written and inscribed on the artwork with invisible ink:
"My tender hashima,
One more dawn is sacrificed, offering in the oculus this soft abyssal blue.
I enter this narrow glow, which holds our honor to feed on your ancestral rock.
The days are disguised and under the influence of your perfume, I see the sky overturning streams of
ashy clouds.
Corridors illuminated with black stone or concrete drawers in the evening, I am frozen in this
concretion of consumed or built material.
How long will you be able to accept other faults where the rain from the sky does not plunge
anymore?
It seems that in Nagasaki, the light has disappeared, the delicate ashes of our souls have been
welcomed.
The propaganda broke our tears under the weight of the arms, a fog of thick absurdity fell.
Let's stop this frantic race, the Meiji evolution is over."
