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a street with no name

a street with no name

By Davisi Boontharm

 

A street with no name is a set of continuous drawings of an ordinary Tokyo’s street portrait. It consists of two volumes of extended Moleskine’s orihon (foldable book) pocket size album. The drawings are postsitu hand drawn by Davisi Boontharm in early 2018. The recto and verso pages of this Urbophilia is designed to put side by side to form a complete frontal view of both sides of the street.

 

An ordinary Tokyo

The mega Tokyo shrinks to one stretch of a street when it comes to my vécu. Here in Midorigaoka itchome, I live on a street with no name, no sidewalk, no place to sit. My street is 350-meter-long, 6 meter wide with 78 buildings flanked on both sides. There are 10 junctions, among them 5 are roji (small lanes). It takes 4 minutes and 50 seconds to walk from one end to the other, and about 2 minutes by bicycle. On this street there are two Family Marts at both ends. Three fudosan (real estate agents), three yakitori restaurants, one bar karaoke, two grocery shops, one sushi bar, three hair salons, one orthopedic clinic, one flower shop and one dry-clean service. All buildings on the street look rather ordinary, majority of them are two story residential buildings without any particular beauty. All these measurable data and information doesn’t make it my street. To claim a place as my place it needs time and process of attachment.

 

Drawing as dwelling

The philosophy of co+labo Radović, is to explore the ability to think, to make and to live the urban. In this context, the emphasis is on the lived experience as one of the most important aspects of the urban but often neglected. Researchers always detach themselves from their own places by investigating them objectively. I try to explore the other way. If the lived experience is important to one’s life, how do we search subjectively into that? How to observe, explain, communicate, share the quality of this ordinary everyday life which is personal and unique in each individual. Phenomenology paid a lot of attention in the concept of dwelling. Dwelling as being in a place include growing with it, making it, changing it which is the essence of human’s existence. If dwelling is an ability to establish oneself with environment, can drawing play the same role? For me, in this context, drawing the street of my everyday life is an attempt to make sense of a place.

 

Why drawing?

First, because I can. I see an ability to draw as important as ability to think and to write. Why don’t one practice all abilities when one can? I wonder how to express lived experience into visual form. How to represent it and how much drawing can do within this process.

Writer such as Georges Perec captured an ordinary street life with words. He sits, observes and writes down the important and unimportant things (Perec 1974). This text encapsulated the moments and movements in time from his perspective. However, text needs language to decode, while drawing is universal. I walk, observe, take notes and take pictures then create my own narratives with drawings. To draw my street is, in a way, to immerse myself into my “place” which is my space of everyday life. Through drawing, an ordinary place can become something more meaningful, at least for me.

 

"Drawing is not what one sees but what one can make others see." 

Edgar Degas

 

The moment I am finishing my drawings, the smallest building on my street has just been demolished. It has disappeared in one day. It is the 8th building on this street that has gone through the “scrap & build” since I lived here. If this practice continues, we won’t be able to see any of the existing buildings on this street in 25-year time. I drew some non-existing buildings, the buildings that used to be there but no longer there. This drawing is therefore a subjective record of my place during my time. I am not objectively recording the truth. I subjectively portray my street the way I want to remember or I want it to be remembered.

 

Drawing as searching

My drawing is an essay, a trial, a search and a work in progress. It is an unfinished portrait in the state of becoming. There is no fear of any errors, it is still a sketch, a croquis, an imperfect oeuvre revealing the outlines and opening up the form (Nancy 2002).

My drawings are a series of sketches that potentially could become proper paintings in future. I have tried different techniques, pencil drawing, ink drawing, brush stroke, watercolour etc. until I was satisfied with the right tool. I chose Sepia Caran d’Ache neocolor water soluble crayon. The colour is inspired by the sketches of the Renaissance great masters. Those powerful swift lines and quick etching in Sepia. I wonder how to have my Tokyo street sketches acquired the same spirit as those drawings. Sepia also coincides with the colour palette of my street which is dominated by different shades of brown. The water softens the heavy traits of sepia crayon, it gives the effect of aquarelle which is fluid, misty and unpredictable. Incorporate water in my drawing, I give a soft touch to my street, the way I feel it.

 

Drawing is an appropriation of place

Handwriting is an imprint of self on the page, I think that it applies to brush stroke and line drawn by hand too. My drawings are authentic works, they came about from my personal touches and gestures. They are witness of the imprints of my street.

I drew all that appears on my street. I started to pay attention to something I usually saw but never noticed. Through drawing, I was scrutinizing through all the details and appearance of those houses. I started to get into the rhythm of the elements on the facades with the repetition of size, scale and materials especially, roof angle, windows and doors. My hand has created lines that portray all the details, through this process I feel that I have appropriated my street and bring it within me. Merlau Ponty stresses that body is a mediator between the world and self, in this case, drawing and dwelling, as bodily experience, are the processes of establishing the attachment to place.

 

Davisi Boontharm

Tokyo, February 2019

 

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