CosmoWonderland: The Two Sides of Alice’s Journey

Elisa Mariotti Open House Lisboa 2023 · Building Futures Together
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‘CosmoWonderland: The two sides of Alice’s Journey’ is a photography series that aims to integrate an alternative narrative to the urban context of Lisbon. The methodology is the use of rapid photographic snapshots. I used the distortion of the panoramic effect because this leads to different possibilities to build a reality based on our inner perspective, then dynamic. The search for this pre-photographic situation leads us to observe the urban context starting from Lisbon’s dystopian and unsustainable dimension, present in the first photograph representing the culture of immediatism, tourism, and the fictional quality of local landscapes. In the second picture, this distortion nebulized with the arrival of Alice (the girl sitting in the garden of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation) in Wonderland, which is but a way to participate in the evolution of the city in its anthropological heart, experiencing coexistence with more sustainable architecture, with different people and welcoming the living spirit of the city is simply stopping to contemplate the surrounding reality. In other words, Alice has finished her research. She understands that the Wonderland she dreamt of lies in the effort to go against the tide.