Just before leaving for GIAB 2012 I was reading Juhani Pallasamaa’s ‘The Eyes Of the Skin: Architecture and the senses.’ In part 2, Spaces of Memory and Imagination (pub. Wiley 2005) Pallasamma writes of how we have:
‘….innate capacity for remembering and imagining places. Perception, memory and imagination are in constant interaction…’ (p. 67)
Reading this made me think about what happens when visiting a new place and how we make sense of a new unknown environment.
I stayed in a hotel over the weekend of the GIAB fair and when checking in was given a map of Glasgow on which a member of staff circled the city’s landmarks.
On Saturday and Sunday mornings I went out with a camera and tried to photograph expected landmarks and unexpected ones. Ones my imagination or memory from books, TV, previous experiences lead me to look for as ‘landmarks’ and for less expected ‘landmarks’.
Expected land mark photos:
Possibly less expected land marks:
It was just a small experiment but one that was useful for helping to think about how for granted we can take an established and ingrained/subconscious way of looking at and experiencing things and to make me want to think about exploring or challenging that process in some way.
