The Invisible Cities Inas Al-soqi & Patrice Aphrodite Helmar Curated by Giulia Trabaldo Tog

BOSI Contemporary is pleased to present
The Invisible Cities, a two-person show curated by Giulia Trabaldo Togna featuring works by Inas Al-soqi and Patrice Aphrodite Helmar.
This exhibition, inspired by the homonymous book by Italo Calvino, presents a conversation between the works, aiming to visually interpret the essence of urban life as described by Calvino. Through the collection of tales about imaginary cities, the book creates a surreal world in which the people and the urban landscape merge together to create a concert of impossible skylines and lives whilst addressing issues related to the development of the contemporary city.
While Al-soqi's collages and prints interpret the urban landscape in a surreal and metaphoric sense, Helmar's photographs reflect the actual urban reality.
The juxtaposition of these two bodies of work creates a visual dichotomy between the idealized conceptualization of life in the city and the documentation of daily encounters with its inhabitants.
The exhibition reintroduces concerns about the urban environment once explored by Calvino's work thirty years ago by bringing back issues of architectural development and generating a new dialogue between literature, art, and urbanism.