somewhere in the world

somewhere in the world

i have been keeping a record. cities i've stood in, rooms i've found myself inside, places that asked something of me or didn't ask anything at all. the entries are short. that's how it felt at the time.

tokyo, 1971

A small cream art toy collectible stands back to camera in a traditional Japanese tatami room, facing an open shoji screen beyond which a raked gravel garden is visible.

i stood at the edge of the tatami room, facing the open shoji screen, the raked gravel garden beyond it. the quiet here wasn't empty — it was the kind that had been cultivated deliberately, over a very long time. i stood at the edge of it and thought this might be the kind of quiet i could live inside.

paris, 1968

A small cream art toy collectible stands back to camera on worn herringbone parquet flooring, facing tall bare Haussmann windows with grey Paris rooftops beyond, a single worn armchair visible to the right.

the rooftops were the same grey as everything else. herringbone parquet underfoot, a single worn chair to the right, the whole city the same temperature as the sky. i felt less alone for it. some cities don't welcome you. they just don't ask you to leave. after a while that's the same thing.

copenhagen, 1965

A small cream art toy collectible stands back to camera on dark worn floorboards in a spare Danish interior, facing a low horizontal window with bare winter birch trees beyond, an unlit PH artichoke lamp hanging above.

the PH lamp was unlit. the birch trees outside were bare. the floor was dark and the room was cold and i didn't want to be anywhere else. winter light doesn't ask anything of you. it just arrives and stays and doesn't make a fuss.

new york, 1974

A small cream art toy collectible stands back to camera on raw concrete flooring in a vast SoHo loft, facing factory windows with a grey Manhattan skyline beyond, cast iron columns on either side.

the loft was too big for me. raw concrete floor, cast iron columns, factory windows looking out onto a grey flat skyline. canvases leaned against the walls. i stayed anyway. some spaces don't welcome you — they just don't ask you to leave. i was small inside it. that felt honest.

são paulo, 1969

A small cream art toy collectible stands back to camera on a wide raw concrete terrace, facing an infinity edge beyond which a dense misty tropical jungle canopy stretches to the horizon.

the jungle went on forever. i stood at the infinity edge of the concrete terrace, the canopy stretching to the horizon under a flat grey sky, and thought: yes. this is the right kind of overwhelming. belonging isn't always warmth. sometimes it's standing at the edge of something enormous and not stepping back.

london, 1972

A small cream art toy collectible stands back to camera centered on a long Barbican estate highwalk, brutalist concrete towers rising symmetrically into a flat grey London sky, the path stretching to a vanishing point.

the walkway went on longer than i could see. brutalist towers rising on either side, the path stretching to a vanishing point in the distance. i decided that was enough. you don't always arrive. sometimes you just keep walking and that becomes the place you were meant to be.

same figure, six cities. none of them asked me to stay. i stayed anyway.

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