Dense levels of construction rise within a city airspace like the abandoned white bones of a civilization. Under the visually-astute eye and editing prowess of Alessandro Zanoni, the ghostly corners of the Ordos district of inner Mongolia are captured in all their isolation as shadowy white photographs, made more aloof with linear composition and hovering text. The Milanese photographer chose a collection of Lou Reed lyrics from the 2003 concept album, The Raven, with the haunting track, Vanishing Act, providing the material for each photograph.
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Zanoni shares, in the project’s description, that he spent six weeks in the developed yet sparsely populated district. He says, “I lived—completely alone—in a 28-floor building. It was a voluntary detachment from the rest of the world. In the early morning, I was used to drinking coffee on the rooftop and one day a bright mist surrounded me while I was listening to Vanishing Act.”
The artist describes himself as a “tireless metropolitan traveler" whose work is focused on finding unusual and urban wastelands. Living within a self-imposed solitude, enacted as part of Zanoni’s mission to explore the urbanization-versus-population anomaly of Ordos, the photographer found a heightened enlightement with the lonesome-tinged narrative of The Raven.Now, if only we could all stand on an empty Mongolian rooftop and let Lou's poetry wash over us.
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