U - TOPIE

This image was a commission to create a poster for Vox International a French theatre company.  The show “U-Topie” was based on the Commune de Paris the left wing revolutionary movement which occupied and governed Paris for two months in 1871 until it’s bloody suppression by the government of Adolphe Thiers.

I perceived the, ill fated, revolutionary communards as idealists climbing an endless twisted path towards a utopian goal that would be forever further up the stair ....... and forever beyond their grasp......

Effectively a variation of the famous M C Escher endless staircase.

I could not use my usual photographic style here as the few surviving photographs from the period were of very poor quality and I needed to create a poster 170 x 120 cms (5’6” x 4’). which requires a very high quality image. Nor did my budget permit the quantity of costumes, props, and people which would have been required to stage a photographic reconstruction! 

In the end I hit on the idea of using old out of copyright steel engravings and re-creating the feel of the political cartoons of the period.

Click the image to the right to see a geometrical demonstration of how this illusion is achieved.

Mouse over the image to select details and click to enlarge.