2004

No Parking

Patrícia Almeida

JapanCityDocumentary PhotographyStreet Photography

"(...) One implication of this series is that we live in an almost inhuman environment, overdetermined by the network. Some of the buildings on show are gridded to infinity and stand rank on rank to the horizon. More intimate spaces are piled high with placards and script under skeins of power-lines and assorted wires. All the same, and despite this wealth of contemporary markers, Patrícia Almeida’s project has its humanist side. She remarks on the Ages of Man. Youngsters kill time, and act out childish and youthful scenarios at road crossings and on the city’s streets. Salarymen walk together purposefully. Pedestrians with baskets return to base. Encumbered cyclists sustain the domestic theme. It is easy to imagine domestic spaces beyond the facades, and all manner of particular interests, for there are quite different styles and costumes amongst her passers-by. Patrícia Almeida’s Tokyo is a city with its tender side, and the promise of intimate and familial moments. Above all it is a city in which humanity appears to be vulnerable. It is not just that the buildings are enormous and out of proportion to the human scale but that they are accessed by pedestrians crossings on complex thoroughfares. Will the city with its profuse and labyrinthine culture be too much for them all? This is her suggestion time and again.(...)"