concourse
“the space of non-place creates neither singular identity nor relations; only solitude, and similitude”
Concourse showcases one photograph from each U-Bahn station in Nuremberg, with 49 stations across 3 lines. While undertaking this project, I read the work of anthropologist Marc Augé on non-places: liminal, transient, late-capitalist spaces devoid of any community or history. Despite taking up almost 40km of the physical space of the city, the U-Bahn offers no identity for those who pass through, and no space for people to live and engage in society. The people using this space have a ticket that gives them access and a given role of passenger.
To undertake this project was a perversion of the role prescribed to me by this place. I was on those trains with no destination, no regular purpose, and to places I had no intention of seeing and will never visit again. I saw new faces with every new train, with no one knowing what I was doing. It has a sense of hyper-anonymity, and was an exploration and total consumption of these areas. By shooting film, there was a risk that some of the photographs would not turn out. I gave myself only one photograph per station, and it had to be captured within 5 minutes before getting the next train. There were no retakes, it had to be a capture of the moment.
“no doubt the relative anonymity that goes with this temporary identity can even be felt as a liberation, by people who, for a time, have only to keep in line, go where they are told, check their appearance.”