#cardopoli

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Branded Trash

Iteration #3: Academic Studies Climate Action & Visual Culture, University Of Huddersfield - UK, 2020

The capacity of visual culture to reveal the unseen and show in new light (instead of, or as well as, telling and informing) is emphasised in Policardo’s Branded trash (In) voluntary product displacement. Photographs of discarded containers with sometimes faded and crumpled, but still clearly identifiable logos appear like still lives, carefully lit and staged like a product placement. Adding an air of glossy value to ‘worthless’ waste, these images raise awareness of – and in doing so are complicit within - the enduring, free advertising of litter. This project brings to light the circulation of value that not only spurs further ecological destruction but accumulates deeply uneven benefits and losses.

→ AC Davidson, University of Huddersfield

Climate Action & Visual Culture - University of Huddersfield

This call for proposals of creative practice-based research may seek to offer alternative forms of social structures through visual cultural

Official document of the initiative

[thebehaviourist]

faux naïf

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This Was Tomorrow – Reimagined

3rd press - very limited run - the UTOPIA edition -

I'm very happy to share the third edition of This Was Tomorrow—a new, limited version of the book originally available at RIBA Bookshop and the London Review Bookshop.

The words are by Judith Martin, architectural conservationist and historian. The design and production? That’s a collaboration between me, Richard “Foe” Grainger (whose layout instincts are wicked), and the excellent Porto-based Devity Studio.

This version isn't just a reprint—it’s a reimagining. Less book-as-object, more object-in-motion. A tool, a companion, a field recorder for stray thoughts and sharp provocations. It’s playful on purpose, a little rough in the right places. Designed to clash with the seriousness of its themes—and to help shake something loose. Because the point of this book has never been just about buildings or preservation. It’s about utopia—not as some unreachable dream, but as a tool. A lens. A way of thinking better futures into existence. And if you haven’t noticed, we desperately need to.

The last 30 years of global economics have stripped us of the ability to imagine alternatives. We live in a system where constant growth is the law, gain is the only measure, and hard work is sold as a magic key. And yet, here we are: people working two jobs and still unable to pay rent, while serial landlords and passive shareholders hoard resources with zero effort and even less empathy.

Calling housing a human right? Radical. Suggesting that rents should be capped? Revolutionary. Meanwhile, owning ten flats and renting them all out is “smart investing.” Nothing about this setup is fair—or even functional. And let’s not pretend it's “charity” to question it.

If people don’t have homes, or peace of mind, or a sliver of spare energy, they can’t even participate in this system. Not even as good little consumers. Capitalism is stalling. And the ones with private islands? They’ll be fine. But the rest of us need to wake up.

Because no one is coming to fix this. Not some politician, not a startup, not a prince charming in a Patagonia fleece. It’s all for profit now. Everything—except the love we share, and the corners of nature that still resist.

There’s so much potential in people. And don’t believe the story that humans are selfish by nature. That’s just the bedtime story the wealthy tell themselves to sleep at night—an old, boring fable by those terrified of sharing.

The answer isn’t to have nothing. The answer is to rethink what having even means. Property isn’t sacred. Technology should improve lives, not build empires. Money is a tool, not a destination. Being rich doesn’t make you interesting—it just means you’re good at hoarding. Good for you. Now what?

When platforms have millions of users, they’re no longer “private ventures”—they’re public utilities. And they should be owned as such. Imagine building systems from the ground up, where laws reflect lived realities, not just protect those sitting on piles of capital.

The myth of the self-made billionaire? Absolute fiction. At best, your skills make up 5% of your “success.” The other 95% is your environment—your family, your networks, the schools you could access, the chances you were given. We’ve built a system where only the extraordinary make it out. Everyone else has to contort themselves into some perfect, productive, high-functioning version of what? A servant? A brand? A smiling pitch?

That’s not human. That’s eugenics with better PR.

We’re standing at the edge of another industrial revolution. Like in the 1800s, we have the tools to work less, share more, and rebalance the equation. But will we? Probably not.

And not because people are asleep. Most are acutely aware—of rent swallowing their wages, of managers ignoring frontline insight, of the sheer energy it takes just to stay afloat.

The problem isn’t ignorance. It’s isolation.

People feel the weight of the system, but there’s no story that links their personal struggles to the wider machinery behind them.

Instead of questioning wealth concentration, they’re told to fear immigrants. Instead of seeing landlords as extractors, they’re told to become one. We’ve been sold the myth that success is personal and failure is moral—that if you’re not thriving, it’s your fault.

What we need, collectively, are stories that make sense of what we’re living through. And spaces to act on that knowledge, together. New blueprints. New pathways. New narratives.

This book is not a solution. But it’s a contribution. A signal. An invitation to keep dreaming, even when hope feels pointless. Because if we give up on that, we’ve already lost.

Let’s keep building—even if it’s just thoughts, questions, new ways of seeing. From the cracks of the current mess, something else can grow. -------

Each copy is handmade, with a lot of care and a bit of chaos—so we’re keeping things slow.

If you're interested, drop me an email or reach out to me on Instagram to order.

Il'll try and get back to you as soon as I can to sort things out personally.

No big shop, no buy now button—just real people and a bit of patience.

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This Was Tomorrow // Statement

My practice begins with the idea that art can’t exist on its own, cut off from the world. It’s tied to everything—our struggles, our society, our politics.

Art is political, or it’s nothing. Just decoration, extra fluff—and we’ve got enough of that already.

My practice begins with the idea that art can’t exist on its own, cut off from the world.  It’s tied to everything—our struggles, our society, our politics.  Art is political, or it’s nothing.  Just decoration, extra fluff—and we’ve got enough of that already. 

What I make isn’t a statement—it’s a challenge.  It’s about rejecting the spaces we’ve been given, the systems that created them.  Art isn’t about making things pretty—it’s about shaking things up.  It reflects the pain and contradictions of the world we live in. 

Brutalism came from a real need. A direct, honest response to the demand for housing, for home.  It looked ahead to something that didn’t exist yet—what some called utopia. 

But don’t we need utopias? 

Dreams are what keep humanity moving forward—the belief that things can get better. 

Brutalism wasn’t about luxury or pleasing the eye.  These buildings were made to meet a need.  To give people homes.  To create communities.  To serve.  

They weren’t built to satisfy the rich or to be admired for their beauty—they were built to be useful. 

And yet, it wasn’t the ideas that failed.  It was the systems that were supposed to support them. Those systems focused only on raw, cheap concrete part -  shelters stripped to their most basic form—and over time, they forgot the people and the communities these spaces were meant to serve. 

Some of these buildings are still here—caught between relics of the past and reminders of greater ideas.  They stand in limbo: housing the present, haunted by the unrealised future they were meant to bring.  This was Tomorrow. 

They ask: What are we building now?  Who is it for?  

Do we still have the courage to dream of something better—something real, something that matters? 

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This Was Tomorrow isn’t about nostalgia or embellishing the past. It reflects on a time when dreams were big, not for gain but for communities. These houses, while often cold and flawed, succeeded in creating spaces where people could belong—places that fostered security, connection, and a sense of togetherness. The failure wasn’t in their design or materials but in the systems that neglected them.

Support structures—maintenance, funding, belief—crumbled as quick solutions overtook the deeper vision of building communities. The concrete didn’t fail; what failed was the collective commitment to those bold ideals.

Inspired by the 1956 exhibition This is Tomorrow at Whitechapel Gallery, this project echoes its spirit. The original exhibition brought together figures like Alison and Peter Smithson, Nigel Henderson, Eduardo Paolozzi, and Erno Goldfinger—united in imagining a shared future shaped by art and architecture.

This Was Tomorrow began as a book with Judith Martin, exploring the legacy of postwar modernism.

Now, this exhibition expands that dialogue, urging us to reflect: What are we building? For whom?

Accompanying the exhibition, opening 18 Jan 2025 at Museu Quinta de Santiago in Porto // @museuquintadesantiago, is a video exploring these ideas. Using Tim Rodenbröker-inspired techniques // @tim_rodenbroeker, I processed original images in Processing // @processingorg, reassembling them in a stop-motion style and editing them back together.

This blend of deconstruction and reconstruction mirrors the hopes and contradictions of the past and present.

This project isn’t just about looking back. It’s a challenge to the present, to believe in something better.

Do we still dare to dream?

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One frame and two halves Photo scan of Efke film, masked with a page from The Guardian. Srebrenica, 2004 / London, 2024

This work begins with a 35mm film strip I shot in Srebrenica in 2004—nine years after the massacre. The town was still visibly wounded. Bullet holes in walls, silence in the air. It felt like a place suspended in time.

The exhibition’s theme was cinema as a space for community. But I kept thinking: what happens when that space is gone? Not just metaphorically, but physically—absent, destroyed. What replaces it? Where do people come together to make sense of what happened, or to believe that it even did?

This strip isn’t presented as a composed photograph. It’s the raw film—unfolded, uncleaned. Flares, hairs, scratches. No attempt at perfection. I paired it with pages from The Guardian, dated 27 April. A record layered on a record. A trace of presence layered over a trace of history.

There’s something about that combination—film and print—that still holds weight. Or maybe held weight. Today, we see tragedies unfold in real time—streamed, posted, reshared. And yet somehow, we don’t believe them. Or we forget. The more we see, the less it registers. The texture of reality thins out.

That’s what I’m really interested in here: not just memory, but the very possibility of believing what we see.

This image—this strip—is a document, but also a question. A question about truth, mediation, and the spaces we’ve lost, physically and culturally, to gather and believe together. If this had been made today—would we trust it? Would we even think it happened?

The project BEYOND THE SCREEN - ART INVADES THE CITY is funded by the Friuli Venezia Giulia region. It is organised by ANAC (National Association of Cinematographic Authors) in collaboration with Young For Fun, Associazione Palazzo del Cinema - Hiša Filma, and Altreforme. Policardo's work is displayed in Pordenone on Via Oberdan and in Trieste on the corner of Via dell'Istria and Via Baiamonti.

The billboard in Pordenone, Italy - July 2024

--- --- --- --- --- --- Questo lavoro nasce da una striscia di pellicola 35mm che ho scattato a Srebrenica nel 2004—nove anni dopo il massacro. La città era ancora visibilmente ferita. Muri crivellati di proiettili, silenzio nell’aria. Sembrava un luogo sospeso nel tempo.

Il tema della mostra era il cinema come spazio di comunità. Ma io continuavo a chiedermi: cosa succede quando quello spazio non esiste più? Non solo in senso simbolico, ma proprio fisicamente—distrutto, scomparso. Cosa prende il suo posto? Dove ci si ritrova per dare senso a ciò che è accaduto—o per credere che sia davvero accaduto?

Questa non è una fotografia composta. È la pellicola grezza—non tagliata, non ripulita. Ci sono flare, polvere, graffi. Nessun tentativo di “perfezione”. L’ho accostata a pagine del Guardian, datate 27 aprile. Un documento sopra un altro documento. Una traccia di presenza sovrapposta a una traccia di storia.

È questo accostamento—tra pellicola e stampa—che forse ancora trattiene qualcosa. O forse tratteneva. Oggi le tragedie accadono in tempo reale—trasmesse in streaming, postate, rilanciate. Eppure, non ci crediamo. O dimentichiamo. Più vediamo, meno resta. La trama della realtà si assottiglia.

È qui che si concentra il mio interesse: non solo sulla memoria, ma sulla possibilità stessa di credere a ciò che vediamo.

Questa immagine—questa striscia—è un documento, ma anche una domanda. Una riflessione sulla verità, sulla mediazione, e sugli spazi che abbiamo perso—fisici e culturali—dove poterci ritrovare e credere, insieme. Se questa immagine fosse stata realizzata oggi—ci crederemmo? Penseremmo che sia davvero accaduto?

Il progetto OLTRE LO SCHERMO - L’ARTE INVADE LA CITTÀ è finanziato dalla Regione Friuli Venezia Giulia. È organizzato da ANAC (Associazione Nazionale Autori Cinematografici) in collaborazione con Young For Fun, Associazione Palazzo del Cinema - Hiša Filma e Altreforme.

L’opera di Policardo è esposta a Pordenone in via Oberdan e a Trieste all’angolo tra via dell’Istria e via Baiamonti.

--- --- --- --- --- --- The billboard in Trieste, Italy - August 2024 photos courtesy of Piero Iuretig

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