The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard

Artwork by Dario Erioli

“[…] The dreamer, in front of the spectacle of distant nature, cuts out as many nests of solitude in which he dreams of living.[…]”

This is a book to dream.

Space, time, dimension, exist in our sub-conscious and belong to us from the very beginning.

During our life we ​​experience its consistency, through abstract concepts that are configured and take shape in our mind, constantly mixing with elements of reality, giving shape to a dream world in which we build scenarios that belong to us.

A poetic space that lives on our memories, our fears, our uncertainties, but also on our deepest desires.

A space in which we build our vision of the world, thus learning, every day, to look at it with new eyes.

We inhabit this world, and it shapes our thoughts, just as we, with our thoughts, shape the world.

Who shapes what, then, is not known, and perhaps it is not even that important.

“[…] As soon as you dream intensely on seeing a square, you feel its solidity, you know that it is a refuge of great safety. […]

As soon as life is established, it protects itself, covers itself, hides itself: the imagination experiences protection. […]

Our house, assumed in its dream power, is a nest in the world. […] Doesn't the dream like to perch high up? […]”

“[…] The corner is a refuge that assures us a first value of being: immobility. It is the safe place, the closest to my immobility. The corner is a sort of half box, half wall and half door. […] Physically, the being that feels a feeling of refuge, huddles on itself, withdraws, hides itself. […]
It is necessary to design the space of immobility by making it the space of being. […]”

“[…] It is not possible to grasp the autonomous activity of the creative imagination through a mixture of true sensations and false hallucinations. An immemorial memory works in a reverse world: dreams, thoughts, memories form a unique fabric. […]

The soul dreams and thinks, and then imagines. […]

The original observation contains a complex of fear and curiosity that accompanies every first action on the world: one would like to see and are afraid to see. […]”

“[…] The detail of a thing can be the sign of a new world, of a world which, like all worlds, contains the attributes of greatness.

The miniature is one of the dwellings of greatness. […]

The house, even more than the landscape, is a state of mind: even reproduced in its external aspect, it reveals an intimacy. […]”

“[…] The immensity is in us, it is linked to a sort of expansion of being that life slows down and prudence stops, but which resumes in solitude. […] As soon as we freeze, we find ourselves elsewhere, we dream in an immense world. […]

Immensity is a conquest of intimacy: greatness progresses in the world to the extent that intimacy deepens. […]”

“[…] I believe that the human imagination has not invented anything that is not true, in this world or in others. […]”

Credits:
These images are the result of personal elaboration through ink sketches, colour pencils, digital drawings, 3D digital models and photographs, which was followed by post production with digital programs.

All the photographs used come from my personal archive, which, like a real memory warehouse, has contributed in a fundamental way to the construction of these scenery.

During my work, I listened a playlist by Ludovico Einaudi, a composition of melodies that makes you dream.

References of the personal photographs:
1) Namibia Desert
2) Finnish Lapland
3) Italian Dolomites
4) Palmaria Island
5) Tuscan Landscape