A City of Churches
Donald Barthelme, 1973
Imagine a city where the streets are “solidly lined with churches.” While at first glance the city appears wholesome, it is actually quite disturbing. Every single building in the town is a church, people even live and work in the churches. The churches have different names and different architectural styles, but in reality they are all Christian and there is absolutely no diversity or vitality. This is an unsettling story about reality and illusion, filled with absurd, dreamlike images. I cut silhouettes of churches and typography out of vellum and colored papers, layered multiple sheets together, and photographed the setup to create shadows and blur. The color is meant to be off-putting, and the churches foreboding.
