Ex Urban is an idea that began to take shape in London, in 2017, during a stay of 2 months.
There, despite the entropy of people and activities, it’s easy to immediately feel part of a flux that sets the pace of a new life. The adrenaline of living in a new city abroad is constantly channelled from the legendary Londoners’ openness and hospitality, but always allowing room for moments of pure introspection.
Cranes, with their red lights rising through the night mists and their imperious dominance during the day, became ever present routes, cardinal points, almost motherly in their surveillance from above and their frustrating remoteness.
Every day, we shared the ride from Mornington Crescent across Oxford Street, wondering who was really in transit between me and them, non-Londoners in London. We carried out our working days, regardless of what would happen after, of the inevitable earthly precariousness, but also of our temporary existence – or maybe eternal presence, as every action is construction and models the fragments of what will stay after us.
Like humans, cranes only leave what they do. They design the landscape during their passage, creating and at the same time becoming part of the skyline. But there are traces of them especially after the constructions are finished, as they model and welcome new life. It’s impossible not to notice them while moving the eyes, but another thing is to look at them. Like people, they exist in their doing, in their only possible life moment, but by no means they are less important. Because, like us, they only leave what they do.
Ex Urban is now a project that aims to capture the cranes’ life moments in dozens of cities around the world, including Rome, New York and Reykjavik.
