Circumambulation is one of the most spiritual walking practices there is. Circles are probably the most spiritual shape, a symbol of the infinite, the emptiness but simultaneously the whole. Most major religions practice some form of circumambulation for its spiritual significance (read more)
Alan Rogers
Posts by Alan Rogers:
Alan Rogers: ‘Walking in Circles’ Exhibition
Walking in Circles A mixed-media exhibition by Alan Rogers of new work inspired by Venice 8-18 December 2015 SG Gallery Scuola Internazionale di Grafica Canneregio 1798, Venice, Italy Press release: Throughout October, November and December 2015 during his residency at La Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, Alan has been using a variety of methodology […]
Islands and Boundaries: Part 1
On 1 Dec, I set out to walk the perimeter of Venice, keeping my right shoulder as close to the lagoon as possible at all times and without taking any dead ends.I kept encountering my phantom selves: returning constantly to within visible distance of where I was some time ago…
Walking in the City 2
Walking a straight (for Venice) route from Zattere to Sant Alvise (a vertical line on a standard map) and using the twenty ENEL gas main covers I found on that route as a navigational aid (click to read more…)
Refreshing Horizons: Guest Poet Sophie Herxheimer
I took this photograph on a weekend break aboard brother Amos’s yacht in the lagoon of Venice, at exactly the same time that Sophie H. wrote this poem…mauve skies are arresting, it seems…
Sisters: Guest Blog 2 by Andi Arnovitz
One city slowly sinking, one city crumbling to dust. Andi Arnovitz makes a personal comparison between Venice and Jerusalem, where she lives and works…(click to read more)
Talking to the Dead: Part 3 (The Architecture of Death)
Is the issue (and aesthetic) of the ‘abandoned’ cemetery solely a concern to northern European Protestants? No one is going to the cemetery anymore (click to read more)…
Talking With the Dead: Part 2
Some people In the Middle Ages believed that the plague was spread by ‘vampires’ which, rather than drinking people’s blood, spread disease by chewing on their shrouds after dying (click to read more…)
Two-Hat Rogers: Is this how Mytho-geography works?
I’ve been documenting a small in-between space in the square over the last year or so. It’s a window with an arrangement of plastic animals, arranged by the house owner (click to read more)…
Like Clockwork: Guest Blog by Nathan Gotlib
So how does walking through the labyrinthian habitat of less than sixty thousand souls, but in the footsteps of twenty-seven million visitors each year make you feel? Try drifting off-track, completely alone, as the sun sets or at night (click to read more).
Walking in the City: Michel de Certeau
The story begins on ground level, with footsteps. Their swarming mass is an innumerable collection of singularities. Their intertwined paths give shape to spaces. They weave places together. (click to read more)…
Seven Martyrs
Transformation, integral to portals, doesn’t have to be spiritual. If you had the courage to cross this particular threshold in the 1920s, you would have witnessed the rise of the communist party in Italy (click to read more)…
Walking the Labyrinth 1: My Cup Runneth Over
Some thoughts after meeting the ‘New Venice Haggadah Group’ and navigating the city using an unusual objective: investigating which palimpsests of officially sanctioned posters would easily and quickly part from their metal housings when soaked by inclement weather…
Death Was Here
This plaque, placed in the dilapidated, soft-earthed cloisters on Lazzaretto Vecchio by artist Herman De Vries, reflects on the 1500 victims of plague and leprosy, buried in the communal trench that divides this minuscule island where the word ‘quarantine’ was invented (click to read more).
Walking in Circles
If ‘Walking in Circles’ is about confines and boundaries, then islands by nature have edges and limits. One image that unites this island of multiple parishes and co-existing communities into a single, coherent vision is de Barbari’s woodcut map ‘Venetie’ (Click to read more)
Sotoportego Zorzi 2
The residents of the courtyard followed the example of their predecessors and added dates to the inscription, imploring the Madonna for safety during enemy shelling, firstly from Austrian bombs, then in WW1. It brings to mind that story in ‘Fever Pitch’ by Nick Hornby…
Sotoportego Zorzi
An estate agent, bent on rushing Marika and I to the next floridly overwritten apartment on sale (una chicca signori!) took the short-cut from Celestia into the heart of Castello via the Sotoportego Zorzi. A transformation occurred (Click to read more)
Ti Morti
A short distance away from these objects of inauspicious birth I begin to see images of death: a more present force in infancy for those foundlings than today’s generation, but nevertheless still twisted into the same umbilical thread. Ti Morti: You (re) Dead (!). (Click to read more)
Alan Rogers: ‘Mutevoli Emozioni’ Studio Ambre, Milan
‘Mutevoli Emozioni’ Galleria Studio Ambre, Milan 16/10/2014 – 30/10/2014 A group show featuring Elvezia Allari, Francoise Calcagno, Ivana Galli, Alan Rogers and Elio Talon. Critical presentation by Professor Federica Mingozzi, curated by Olivia Bassetti and organised by Caterina Maggia for Studio Ambre. My contribution to this exhibition is a small selection of photographs is from […]
Watermark: Exhibition at Bridport Art Centre
Photographs by Alan Rogers Bridport Arts Centre, Cafe & Foyer Galleries 9 South Street, Bridport, Dorset DT6 3NR T 01308 424204 E exhibitions@bridport-arts.com W www.bridport-arts.com Tuesday 26 November 2013 – Saturday 21 December 2013 Opening hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10:00 – 16:00 Watermark is an exhibition of photography documenting the effects of maritime environments on man-made surfaces. […]
Alan Rogers at Jackson Gallery, Portland.
Watermark An exhibition of photographs from the Watermark series at the Jackson Gallery, Portland, documenting the effects of maritime environments on man-made surfaces. All the images were taken a short distance from the sea, either in Weymouth, Portland or around the Lagoon of Venice: familiar places I’ve lived and worked in over the last ten […]