The project “A [rt] territory of London” started as a book of essays (written by Kirill Kobrin) and of photographs (by Natalja Vikulina). We wanted to show London not just as a scene for art, but also to show how London could act as a piece of art, how it could “perform itself”.
The book is structured around the list of museums and galleries, visited during the project. The list is organised in the alphabetic order, so the reader goes from Barbican to the British Library, from the British Library to the Frieze Art Fair and so on. Altogether there are 27 places to visit.
Twenty-seven photo essays are the reports of the twenty seven walks made during the project. Following the traditions of situationists, I was mostly travelling by foot, only a few longer trips were made using public transport. The elongated compositions of the photographs echoe the visual experience of walking: our gaze slides on the horizon line, or stumbles into the row of the passers-by’s boots.
There is a story that Guy Debord, when planning his “dérives”, was using “a glass method”. Sitting with a glass of wine with his friends and thinking where to set his foot for a next walk, Guy Debord often simply traced the glass on the map of Paris. The outlines of the glass would become a route for their next “dérive”. Debord liked a chanceto lead us away from our usual mode of thinking and reveal to ourselves something that we didn't even know it exists.
Here, the list of galleries and museums and the alphabet together act as a Guy Debord’s glass. Despite the apparent structure, it allows the chance to come in, and it guides you away from your habits and preferences.
The photographs are not just single frames. They are sequential, with the focus being made not on a single image (and single subject), but on the relationships between the images. The photograph ceases to be a “stopped moment”, and gets the continuity of a film. The frames are pieced together to create a mosaic-like effect, depicting London through a multiplicity of different voices and narratives.