CandaCe HiTT
Torie Sanford
inTrodUCTion Candace Hitt and Torie Sanford-finch are graduate students at The University of Memphis. Ms. Hitt is working on her Master’s of fine arts in Photography, while Ms. Sanford-finch is in the Master’s of fine arts program in english, though her current work integrates both visual and written language. in their current project at The florence University of the arts, these two artists are collaborating on an interpretive project based around italo Calvino’s “invisible Cities,” a plausible account of the tales of travels by Marco Polo as told to Kublai Khan. Ms. Hitt and Ms. Sanford-finch have invested their interpretation of Calvino’s work with the insights of a 21st Century traveler, combining the solitary, interior experience of a stranger in a strange land with the wide-eyed curiosity and exploration of culture and place that has amazed travelers throughout history. Their exploration fuses the boundaries of language, space and physical presence, seeking that “souvenir” that conveys both impression and explanation.
The novel follows a fictionalized Marco Polo as he attempts to describe his travel adventures to the ruler Kublai Khan. as Khan tries desperately to discern the certitude of Polo's tales, it eventually becomes apparent that one can find traces of home in any place, and, in the same vein, one can look at their home with the awe of a visitor. Though published in the mid-seventies the validity of the work has become even greater when consideration is given to the technological advancements and globalization of our world. But things are never quite as they seem: they are never as great or terrible nor are they ever quite actually as we recall them--as was the case quite often with the tales of Marco Polo in Calvino's work. Contrary to the days when Polo traveled there are reminders residual images and messages that prove or disprove our own thoughts. So Torie and i searched for reminders of home and documented the effects of travel on the visitor through the medium of digital photography and social networks. Technology allows for greater access both in capturing the moment and connecting with others. Still, those bits of documentation cannot be relied upon completely because there is as much deception in an image or a "tweet" as there is in the memory. it is all a matter of perception, and we found, much like the fictitious Marco Polo, every time we described the city we visited we were describing home. our work presents the many facets of a travelers life, beyond that of mere tourists, and observes the skewed perceptions and ideas about people and places and also pinpoints those moments when the identities of tourist and native intersect.
The city does not always consist of this, but of relationships between the measurements of it's space and events of its past....i realized i had to free myself from the images which in the past had announced to me the things i sought: only then would i succeed in understanding... When asked to interpret italo Calvino's novel, invisible Cities, Candace and i were a bit uncertain about how to approach the task, until we stepped into the shoes of Marco Polo, Calvino's protagonist, and saw first hand the many dimensions in which one exists as they travel. The experience not only brought new perspectives of ourselves as travelers but brought clarity to our views of our own lives as natives in our homeland.
We WoUld liKe To THanK everyone for yoUr SUPPorT and ParTiCiPaTion in THe organizaTion of THiS evenT, and We WoUld liKe To offer a SPeCial THanK yoU To: gabriella ganugi luca Bucciarelli david Horan eva Sauer eleonora accorsi david Weiss daphne Mazzanti lucia giardino Crystal goudsouzian rebecca dyck-laumann gail King Warren The art department at the University of Memphis and of course... our families Without you all none of this would be an actuality. Thank you!
di va Bseiso Nadia www.palazziflorence.com