Venise out in

«  I get up at four in the morning to wander in the darkness of the deserted city. I can’t make out much, I get lost in the narrow alleyways, it’s cold. The sun rises, radiant. I’m in the neighbourhood close to the architecture school. The streets fill up with students, workers, and then tourists. I con­tinue down a dead end, closed off by a low brick wall and wire fencing. Beyond it, a terrain of dilapidated boats, I can’t be sure if it’s a garage or a scrapyard. I retrace my steps back to the city centre, to cross over the Accademia bridge. I take out of my pocket the large key to the front gate of Silvia’s house on Campo Santo Stefano. In the entrance hall, a gondola rests on wooden trestles, a building spotlight illuminates a section of a wall. One floor up, torn wallpaper, garden tables and chairs, bags of rub­ble, painted murals and empty shelves signal the transitory state of the premises. I open a window. Outside, the sun is at its peak and the air is icy. I catch sight of Cristiano; I go downstairs, and he guides me to the northernmost point of the island—three little­used alleyways that lie in straight lines. We dawdle there taking in their simple, calm beauty, then night falls, the shops close, the passers­by become scarce. I return to the hotel and lay out on my bed the Polaroids taken in the streets of Venice and at Silvia’s house. They form into pairs all by themselves, I don’t give it too much thought. Out, in. Some photographs remain alone. Berlin, Zürich, Zürich, Berlin, Berlin, Berlin, Berlin, London is the title of Calla Henkel and Max Pitegoff’s book in which they visit apartments for rent and photograph them in black­and­white. I thought of it when framing the bathroom shots in Campo Santo Stefano. The next day I walk through the first floor of the house, searching for this staircase nestled between two hallways that I can never locate, as if its existence was on and off. Steep and narrow, it leads to an apartment with red carpeting, small bedrooms, bathrooms, lofts, piles of debris, rubble, dust. Silvia will soon schedule site meetings with archi­tects, designers, artists and artisans. They’ll redo it all.» — Julien Carreyn