Robert Polidori

In his new book, Robert Polidori presents us with a single large-format photograph of a city block in an improvised, auto-constructed settlement in Mumbai, India. In an almost seamless déroulement that appears to expand like an accordion or folding-screen, the photograph is composed of multiple images imperceptibly overlaid and welded together in a complex process to form a panoramic view. Applying remote sensing techniques that are normally used in space cartography and street photography, Polidori ventures a photographic attempt to come to terms with the phenomena of adjacencies, observing and beholding what is next to what. In this way he minutely scans the urban landscape, recording the precarious and temporary nature of the provisional and yet psychologically rich and in fact highly individualized dwellings.