Between the lines

All black and white images are using Kentmere,push to the1600

When I took my camera out,I just stepped out of my hotel, barely asleep after crossing over several time zones, figuring out how the train system works, and dragging over luggage through a cobble stone road.

Walking towards the city centre, there was a mix of pre war and post war reconstruction buildings. It’s almost typical of the eras, a band aid to cover a big gaping wound from the worst of times.

Where town fringes be the locals holding ground while the city centre are beings occupied by tourists, beautification, and profit margin. They are making do with whatever was left by society, maybe my observations are not completely correct nor fair.

But the reality always brought me there, the marginalized groups sometimes blend in so nicely into the background of a space

A space with a big invisible line.

Creeping my way into the city centre, alley is always a shared space between two buildings. But it can be read as an open space boundary between two neighbouring powers. It’s where all the necessary yet visually unappealing gather to make everything work.

Well this is a function follow form. It’s some sort of “just nice” design decision.

It’s always a certain landmark that was poking through the sky. A spire to inspire or to extinguish will? Symbolism of godly presence or institutionalised greed? Interpretation of this architectural language will always be a double sided interpretation from both sides of the aisle.

Judging a space occupier like a landmark is always an easy exercise, we can come out with a description almost instantly, but to judge its function, it is certainly time the only able narrator.

There are changes every now and then, and there are empty spaces to be written,drawn or filled with new ideas, functions or memories. Nonetheless it will come when the line is ready to be drawn between old and new, between future functionality and dysfunction relic, between past and future.

But alas, we are living in between those lines.

Potramk 2024

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