To rebuild discourse around the visual poetics of José Thomas would seem to lead us in search of a narrative of elves and beings made of light, in which steeds run through magnificent forests and where the breeze begets dream melodies and magical songs; but we are, instead, referring to images of our Central Park seen under another light, with different eyes.

His images with an infrared camera (with no software to mediate) provide us with a poetics that is different from that o the bridges of Central Park, connecting us with a reality that is more sublime than the beauty of a landscape that has been photographed a thousand times.

Perhaps Thomas’ use of infrared photography (which is mostly used in scientific processes and allows science to see what our eyes regularly can’t register, from tumors to climate change), that light range not visible to the human eye, allows us to rethink the concept of what we see, or even the very idea of being able to perceive what we do not see in the landscape, or, rather, we could say that allows us to pack our every day experience in a different way, and thereby to question what we see and understand as reality, juxtaposing visions of dreams to the agitation of a city that moves at breakneck speed, beyond the possibilities of the human eye: Thomas compels us to dream.

This vision of the bridges of the Central Park brings us closer to a moment of reflection on the realities that surround us. These bridges that John Lennon walked so many times, so as to make them part of his daily life, could have also inspired his dreams. These bridges can connect us with other limitless spaces, they may lead us to this magical place that Lennon asked us to Imagine
 

Imagine there's no heaven

It's easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us, only sky

Imagine all the people living for today…

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope some day you'll join us

And the world will be as one

Perhaps for a moment we can cross these bridges and dream of that ideal world where we can all live as one, and allow us to imagine that there is no heaven separate from us, but rather that we must change our way of seeing in order to understand that we inhabit that heaven.

By Ezequiel Taveras

Curator