Otto Snoek

de Sandra Smets, Otto Snoek, Max Rademann

The book contains panoramic photos of todays Rotterdam and Dresden, always placed side by side. As it were, a parallel travel guide of two traumatized (sister) cities that are being rebuilt. As the artist Otto Snoek puts it: Rotterdam and Dresden are cities with hidden parallels that are made visible at all times. You can fold an image of one city to unfold it in another city. From the innermost past to the present. You can walk all corners of the cities, traverse neighborhoods and an attentive one being a careful spectator of urban life in the suburbs and inner city via axes that give her direction. The anchor points, the density, are numerous it will differ per region, per era. In between neutral and blind spots. Everything seems connected with everything. Loaded with memories of a past. Memories that are not directly mine, but make themselves known to me. This is how it happens that an imaginary map is hidden under a real one. I feel the city under my footsteps.