kiddingthecity [dot] org

About this blog

This is my photoblog, a sort of visual research diary, which looks at the many invisible cities around us. It follows in particular my main research interest, the gentrification of the Greenwich Peninsula, in London. It claims an attachment to the real, in the sense that the photographs are about what I see (and sense) in my almost daily walks. They are about people in flesh and bones, the real people and objects I met during the walks. But they are also the outcome of theoretical readings and analysis. In this sense, these photographs are not neutral (pure evidence and obvious appearance), and actually they problematize the relationship between reality and knowledge: if the city is a visual text, in the sense that is in a state of continuous metamorphosis, ephemeral, where few things stay how they look like, how do we image or frame it? Can we freeze it in the instant of a shot? In this sense, there is here less an urge to depict a truth, or to represent an outcome, than an ability to describe, putting to the fore what is overlooked, concealed, and misrepresented. Find out more in my open research diary: each entry is a tactic.

Photography Background

I am a research student in Visual Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Previously, I took the MA in Photography and Urban Culture at the Centre for Urban and Community Research (CUCR). I am currently tutoring students at the Deptment of Sociology. My favourite quote is from Sukhdev Sandhu's 'Night Haunts': "My chief piece of equipment is a pair of sturdy boots [and an always obsolete digital camera, currently Nikon D70]. Walking is a means of uniting heart and head, both emotional and analytical intelligence" (2006:15).