Today's Metro Momento

Railway Reads

Got into work in record time this morning (just over an hour) so with the various bits of legwork I have to do between stations I didn't have time to read more than Metro. Today they focussed on top tomes about the tube for Xmas stocking fillers (damn, though didn't include One Stop Short of Barking) - it did include what looks like being a fab book of subway photography "Underground: Travels on The Global Metro" by Marco Pesaresi.

He's an award winning Italian photographer who when he lived in London in the early 90's. His work had previously focussed on immigrants, drugs, prostitution and life on the edge - so naturally he became fascinated by the Tube. He then travelled to Milan and Berlin carried on taking subway pictures and ended up with a display of pictures of 10 major cities.



Pesaresi said "I wanted to explore the world, and most of all was in search of freedom. In every city I found a different story, but in each one I found a cosmopolitan society living underground. In this society, you could go anywhere. You could talk to everyone. (really) Everyone was equal. It felt to me a little like a parallel world where I began to feel free."

Not sure how much freedom I feel I have on the tube when squashed with City bods on the Waterloo and Shitty line, but I can kind of see what he means. Apparently there's a brill picture of a man, ascending the stairs at King�s Cross with red balloons flying from the handrail, looking like poppies and acting as remembrance of the tragic loss of life in the King�s Cross fire.

Deffo on my Xmas pressie list and it has an introduction by Francis Ford Coppola, how kewell.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Monday, November 15, 2004 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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