ROME S/S 2011

To start, I have never met this dude. This is a piece I have been developing throughout the past couple of months with my images I took of this scene. In the early spring of 2012 I found myself at a party, in the ancient centre of Rome. The apartment, where my friend was living at the time, was much different than regular Roman student apartments. It was a one floor house, with two entrances. The back entrance was reached through a hallway which lead to the busy Corso del Rinascemente. This hallway linked the restaurant IPS and my friends apartment. Being able to smoke in this hallway, my friend led me there. It is quite a dwindling and rundown hallway and walking towards its end, I found myself in the middle of a barber stand. It was “Sponsored by the restaurant for its customers” my friend informed me, when I asked him “Dude! What is this?”I was completlely spellbound, for what I found were the oddest combinations and assemblages of objects I have ever seen. Yoghurt cups had been cleaned and hung to dry over an old coathanger. From the desk, a string with a rubber on the end was attached. I have always been fascinated by weird and so called abnormal human behavior and it was fascniating to move around another persons environment which he had formed so carefully.

about

the deskAmongst these random, hotchpotch of objects, the desk was the most concentrated spot. This is where he does his work as a barber. So what would he need a bottle of Dexaton muscle relaxant for? a.k.a the date rape drug.His supposedly environmental care and nature continues, cleaned out yoghurt cups drying upside down.In the bottom left corner a note is lying around, with different dates and hours make a pencil scribbled calendar. Maybe these are customers? It also says “LGV” on top, which are my initials backwards! Next to it lies a copper colored passport cover, with no pages. Other table curiosa: toothbrush, talcuum powder, eyedrops and 3x combs.

“What is your rinsed, hung up to dry on a hat

rack, yoghurt cup?”

outWho this dude is, I do not think Iwill ever know. Does it really matter? No. But I will always remeber the thrill, which I still get when I look at these images. It just shows how strange we all are, some more hidden than others. We, concious and subconciously, analyze our fellow human beings. Whether it is briefly looking over the gorceries in the cart infront of yours(either contemplating yourself that you did not get that bag of spinach, or smiling because you chose non fat milk and s/he low fat), or innocently peeking over to what kind of lipstick brand the girl next to you in the bar’s ladies room uses( here again either cintemplaiting because she uses Tom Ford and you are stuck with Revlon)I believe that we all have a strange, Italian barber inside of us in the way we use and organise our belongings.What is your rinsed, hung up to dry on a hat rack, yoghurt cup?