14092005 – Copenhagen

This trip could have been, like others, an exalted conquest of foreign trains, with no tomorrow.
Crossing Copenhagen, where the city is not so much visited as the railroad tracks. The attention is focused on local graffiti, different models of trains, ways to infiltrate depots. The actions follow on from one another, the solutions found, the layers of paintings, exits, returns to the hotel.
We know Rap’s precision when it comes to telling about things seen and experienced. In 14092005 the facts are recounted day after day, almost hour by hour, from beginning to end the story and the images respond to each other, each anecdote finds a photo to illustrate it. The camera follows him to the prison where Rap succeeds in introducing him, the story is crazy.
The arrest of the group gives the trip an unexpected twist. The raw actions give way to a story without temporal reference points, settling in time under duress. The corridors, the walking courtyard, the cell are described with acuity, in their smallest details.
The encounters in the courtyard are as many windows on other paths, as many lives that meet at this same point, breathing the same air.
There is no longer any question of a railway network, a new, more international map unfolds. World visions are exchanged, it’s a thought process. It’s fascinating.

” This book is an important testimony. One of the few where we understand how graffiti, which guides each day of the author’s life, can be a way to enter life, the best perhaps to talk about the world and move around in it.”
(Guillaume Pellay, Éditions Peinture)