To Paris, to Bombay.

I watched Yuri Mamin’s Window to Paris (Окно в Париж) yesterday. With black humour and surreal touch, the film toys with aspects of culture, national identity and stereotypes, with a nod to the shift from communism to capitalism and reference to personal idiosyncrasies and the Pied Piper too. From crowded apartment in St Petersburg there is a window to Paris, to warmth, light and liberties, consumer produce in abundance and sacred buildings—"Such churches, and they don’t even believe in God". There is money found through impersonation of an organ grinder and there are Citroëns and motorbikes for the taking. Watching this, and with future travel plans on my mind, I wonder what city I would like to find a magical window to. Would I, too, pick Paris? How about you? Where does your window lead? Rome? Lima? London? Bombay?

 

Should you pick Bombay (Mumbai, formally called Bombay), I can help with that.

 

Through purgatory passed, and then there was Bombay is a recent artists' book of mine, twenty-four pages in length.

{Turning the pages. Collage and pencil scenes across twenty-four photogravure views of Bombay, with more to follow.}

+ Views in my pocket, on the wall