These images are part of an ongoing project, which intends to draw the relation between London and its intrinsic urban features. This is an attempt to understand how the geographical environment of London could play an influence in shaping the poetic visions of so many writers and artists, particularly during the Victorian Age.
That period has seen an incredible diffusion of the gothic fiction genre, a genre that combines fiction, horror, death and Romance. London has been the privileged setting of so many gothic stories and I’d like to resume those atmospheres like a psychogeographical interpretation of the city of London, as Ian Sinclair did in his books. Most of his work consists in a psychogeographical reconstruction of the City blended with essays, fiction and poetry.
The author about her work:
My work is a form of detachment from reality, as much as a kind of sinking in it; it’s like a process, to become conscious of what surrounds us and alters our feelings. I like to slip into this reality to pick scattered pieces that resemble the state of things, and see how ordinary spaces become poetry. In order to do this I need to take some distance from my current way of living to choose what is worth seeing and to try to catch a glimpse of something diferent. Photography has always been my tool to get structure, order my thoughts and stay focused. It’s being here in this life; I’m collecting spaces like private memories through which I would like to build my way of seeing. It’s my attempt to fnd the potential beyond what we call the ordinary. I have developed a deep interest in the poetics of the urban landscape, in particular for the uncanny in contemporary modernity, and for all those phenomena of estrangement and alienation related the space around us. I want to evoke a sense of eeriness in the viewer, like jamais vu, the impression of seeing a situation for the frst time, despite rationally knowing it beforehand.
About the author:
Valentina Casalini was Born in 1987 in Trento. She studied Photography at ISIA Urbino. In the past few years she has lived in different cities and has developed a deep interest in the poetics of urban landscape, in particular for the uncanny aspects of contemporary modernity. Her works has been shown in both solo and group exhibitions in Italy, UK and Canada, including recently the Month of Photography Los Angeles Group Show in Santa Monica, CA.
