Multi-media and site specific installation 2007 - 2009

Sunken City is an exploration of time and architecture through scale and context using found objects (styrofoam) as its base and launching pad. Created through random or planned arrangements of found shapes then covered with silicone, wax and plaster, Sunken City posits a fictional archeological site of undertermined time period.The installation evokes a forgotten site of the future, which eerily points to ancient sites of Mesopotamia or remains from the classical era, bringing the viewer full circle  to  an overview of civilization as an eternal loop of edification and decay. Raphaele points out through this work the beauty and nostalgia of place and habitat as a constant necessity and castaway of the human condition, remaining as almost the only representative of those past. A 40 minute video accompanies the Sunken City maquette through which Raphaele explores by means of the traveling eye of the camera, an uninhabited site, as would a mechanical eye of a robot traveling to far fetched planets, bringing back precious and raw viewings of unknown civilizations.