Cabinet of Cities. Invisible Curiosities.
“... from the number of imaginable cities we must exclude those whose elements are assembled without a connecting thread, an inner rule, a perspective, a discourse. With cities, it is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most unexpected dream is a rebus that conceals a desire, or it’s reverse, a fear.” Italo Calvino
Mailbox 141 is a gallery space housed in a stairwell on Flinders Lane in Melbourne. 19 tiny hand painted sculptures made from clay and crystals for the 19 tiny window boxes. Cabinet of Cities. Invisible Curiosities interconnected two main ideas that within themselves had no particular commonality. Somehow, obscure lines were drawn between the two, creating a panoramic story within the boxes of Mailbox 141. Creating a site-specific installation around the premise of two very different books that both engage and inspire me: A Cabinet of Curiosities: A pictorial inventory of Albertus Seba’s collection of natural specimens, and Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. One is imagery described through the use of words, the other is the natural world represented in pictures.