a map without words

a map without words is a map of the unseen. “Airplane flights are usually from city to city, but in between are the untrodden realms to which you can only give approximate labels … The oxbows and mesas out the window are anonymous, unfathomable, a map without words. I’ve found out that the wish the plane would do an emergency landing in one of them is widespread among those who go from city to city on their work. These nameless places awaken a desire to be lost, to be far away, a desire for that melancholy wonder that is the blue of distance.” Solnit, R. (2006). The Blue of Distance. In A Field Guide to Getting Lost (pp. 29-41). essay, Penguin Books.

archival pigment prints, 11 by 14

ongoing