The carpet, where there is carpet, is caked in dust. And beyond the makeshift barrier, the corridor continues in unilluminated gloom, and then turns, a corner beyond which we cannot navigate though, like Alice before the looking glass, we can surmise that the spaces we cannot see are very much like the spaces through which we have just passed. This final terminus, the wooden barrier, is illuminated by a plastic doll, two feet high, and carrying a lamp in its pudgy plastic hand. She is photographed against the wall where she is hung, so there is continuity, yes, no break in image and background, but also an absolute contradiction between this image, the rather heartening human endeavor, and the desolation of the setting. You know the photograph was taken here, recently, that this room was inhabited by the subject, the photographer, lights and camera, but this knowledge cannot disturb the dust that blankets everything.
Dust is the condemned urban equivalent of snow, or sand.
A desert, and irretrievably so at this stage of the Viennoise hotel's history. Baladi has painted signs on the walls. A green man running here and there, meticulous graffiti elsewhere. A doll hangs above the broken sink in another room, still in its plastic bag, turquoise hair, sparkling latex cycling shorts, fluffy white jacket. In yet another room a postcard sized photograph of a newly married couple gathers dust, again over the sink.