A photographic diary by Giovanna Silva guiding us through the United Nations Office headquarters in Geneva.
A chat-like narration unveils spaces, thoughts, eye catching details and is overlapped by images of halls, old phone booths filled with plastic wrap, textured walls, floors and ceilings, rows of tables and chairs, either straight or curving, like rollercoasters.
“I shoot five hundred and sixty-seven photos in thirtyfive minutes. The genre is known as now or never, and it's a fairly commonplace form of delirium in this line of work.”
The pictures, all taken with an iPhone, offer an instant and almost sneaky glimpse into the architecture and ordinary life of the building, now stripped of its inaccessible status.
Giovanna Silva lives and works in Milan. As a
photographer, she exposed at the Venice Biennale 2006 her work about the city of Bogotà, Colombia. She is the author of
Desertions, a chronicle of an american trip with designer
Enzo Mari. From 2005-2007 she contributed to
Domus and since september 2007 until september 2011 she was the Photo Editor of
Abitare. She photographed Renzo Piano and Zaha Hadid for the Abitare's special issues
Being Renzo Piano and
Being Zaha Hadid, 6 month experience of architecture in the making. In 2011 she published the book,
Orantes, ed. Quodlibet. In 2012 she published
Narratives/Relazioni: Baghdad, Green Zone, Red Zone, Babylon,
Mousse Publishing.
She is in the editorial board of
San Rocco Magazine. She is the editor of
Humboldt Books. She has a column on Doppiozero.
