Camila Sposati

Camila Sposati was one of the exhibitors in Landscape Trauma. Whilst much of the exhibition referenced rural, geological and cartographical affairs, Sposati’s work distinguished itself by its wholly urban construction and references. Her contribution to the exhibition was a video projection, titled Talk to Me. It featured video footage, apparently shot from a helicopter, of a vast and sprawling concrete jungle of what appears to be one of the world’s biggest cities. The viewer saw the awesome city [Sao Paolo] by day, as night fell, and by night. Skyscrapers and other buildings designed for dense occupation, literally as far as the viewer’s eyes could see. Superimposed on this towering and spectacular urban landscape was a conversation between two people, a man and a woman.

Though they are clearly in the same physical space, their conversation suggested that they were, in reality, in different psychological or mental spaces. The conversation was awkward, disjointed, disconnected. Her: “I want to live in a different place… I’d meet different people… I’d go to a movie everyday…” Him: “I’m going to cook pasta; what sauce do you want?” The work resonated with stark human isolation. Ironically, though the viewer had a bird’s eye view of literally tens of millions of people, they could not discern a single living soul.

The non-conversation of the two protagonists confirmed the sense of the human isolation of the city dweller - millions of people unable to properly engage with each other, even on a one-to-one level, and by implication (within Talk to Me) sharing the same domestic space. Even the piece’s title resonated with the despair and desperation of loneliness.