Mapping the everyday (SOLD)

48″ x 30″ x 1.5″ acrylics on canvas.

Sold at Galerie Stein. To inquire about full-size limited edition prints of this painting, contact Pete Stein: peter@galeriestein.com  +01 604-866-6050.

Years ago, I met a guy who had chaos tattooed on his back. Not the word, but a visual representation of chaos. It looked like a wreath of tangled wire. It wasn’t pretty, but it was captivating.
 
The theory of chaos explains the behaviour of dynamic systems—like a community.

A few weeks ago, my class read life stories from women living in the City of the Dead—a giant cemetery (or, ‘necropolis’) in Cairo.

Generations have made the cemetery their home and they weave their lives in and around tombs, making life in the chaos of the informal settlement (see below).

This year, the Egyptian government announced it’ll demolish huge sections of the cemetery to make room for a highway and bridge. Most can’t afford the relocation apartments and, anyways, as one lifelong inhabitant explained,

“Even if we were relocated to another place, it will not be the same.”

Life in the City of the Dead is like old city neighbourhoods that grew organically and look like chaos… irreplaceable functional chaos.

Urban planners debate whether insta-neighbourhoods should ever be planned because they override the organic building of a neighbourhood’s identity and connectivity.

Old city maps (like the one of Venice, above) outline the everyday lives of generations, over centuries. There’s something beautiful in the humanity of such functional chaos, don’t you think?

Inspired by this, this new piece is called, ‘Mapping the everyday.’