Sunday, May 5, 2019

City in Ruins

Thank you to Tess Hall, a participant in my current class with Jane Davies, for sending me a reference to the poem, Building with its Face Blown Off, by Billy Collins.




I am also reminded of this photo from Edward Burtynsky, which I saw recently at the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal.

Edward Burtynsky, from Three Gorges dam project, China, 2002

This is the kind of devastation that is suggested by my recent imagery of "deconstructed" buildings in a mixed-media series, "City in Ruins", which I blogged about earlier this week.

2 comments:

Margaret said...

I love the work of Billy Collins (have more than one of his books of poetry) so will have to look up that reference.

But as to the building...until you clarified the location, I thought I was seeing a view of the building blown up years ago by Timothy McVeigh in the U.S....killing so many, including children at a day care centre. I am relieved that wasn't the scene, but it troubles me nonetheless. Hmmmmm....

Heather Dubreuil said...

Yes, these images to offend our sense of order, the sanctity of our homes. We imagine the trauma of the people who have had to endure this, for whatever reason.