The walls have feelings.


The fascination that Franco Monari has for abandoned places is such that it dictates the manner and method of his research, and allows him to capture images of the broken walls of slowly decomposing buildings in an equally worn-out manner. He explores Varosha, Cypriot town occupied by the Turks in 1974, since evacuated and cut-off from the outside world, using this as his backdrop, a place where time stands still. “The photos were taken in July 2008”, he tells us, “with a Polaroid SX-70 and with expired 600 film. This is why the colours are melancholy and desaturated”. The buildings stand out like husks and carcasses, empty containers, ghosts of their own past. “Be it rooms, halls or warehouses”, taken from the introduction of “Memore”, Monari’s latest photographic book, “they become microcosms, whose walls are custodian to contemporary local history” and walking through them takes us back in time.

Photo:

© Courtesy of Franco Monari

www.francomonari.com

(click on the image at right for more pictures)