November 2019

Our planet has orbited the sun 2500 times, seen 30000 full moons and revolved on its own axis 920000 times since these stones (brought by land and sea from Tunisia, Turkey and Greece) were carved and erected as the columns and ornaments that stand today in ruin amongst the living organism that is the city of Rome.

These temporal rhythms conjure in me an existential connection to the many generations that fill the space before my birth. I feel the poignancy like a distant awareness of those people that endeavoured to create what I now find, touch and frame. These monuments we build to express ourselves are the emblems of man’s history, marking and witnessing myriad events through their enduring placidity.

Craving solitude and silence to make this work, I distanced myself from my escorts to stand alone on the Forum, beneath the stadium of the Colosseum, or in the dimly fluorescent-lit cellars beneath the city streets that serve to store this man honoured stone. The rhythm of birth - life - death feels present to me. I found myself feeling as I did when photographing the Thames Estuary: faced by slow moving dark water with an unparalleled human history of endeavour and toil, of losses and love.

These threads that link our bodies into our world fascinate me and leave me safe and secure that I am, we are, part of something - then, now and in the future - just like tides in the oceans, moon phases, or the changing seasons.

Locations: The Colosseum, Forum Traiano, Forum Romanum, The Pantheon, Villa of Livia.