7/27/2024
Hi Roby
I'm preparing for an art fair now, thinking about our collaboration project and our journey over the next five years. Plans can always change, but if we can set one direction, I don't think there's any problem even if we don't see each other often and are far away. I watched a series called Marcopolo on Netflix recently, and one idea that came to mind when I saw it was Marcopolo, the explorer, the adventurer; why don't we proceed with our work on a big theme? Can't we find some similarities and differences between the perspectives of people from the Middle Ages who explored the unknown and those of us now?
Best,
Song E
7/29/2024
Dear, Song
Marco Polo Theme
I find Marco Polo a very interesting theme, especially because it represents a bridge between Venice and the East (in fact, Venice is remembered as the "Gateway to the East").
Many things come to mind about medieval people's investigation of the invisible.
The point in common with Marco Polo could be how everything that could not be seen directly was translated from the collective imagination.
In the Middle Ages, Bestiaries and Herbals (the illustrated equivalents of our encyclopedias) were widespread; curiously, these Bestiaries and Herbals also included fantastic elements.
The unicorn, for instance, was one of the animals contained in the Bestiaries.
And what was it? It was the rhino!
Marco Polo described it in one of his travels, and the artists depicted it as a horned horse.
What is interesting about this example is how the invisible—and the unknowable—is translated through something visible and known. It is a normal human mechanism: We begin to investigate what is not familiar by starting from the familiar.
Roby