Claire Iono’s “Hidden Cities”

Claire Iono’s solo exhibition “Hidden Cities” held at the Centre d’Art, Citadines, has painted for me a landscape of hope amidst the particular turmoil of our times – both within Auroville and abroad.

Each painting evokes themes of mantric meditation, with visionary landscapes of urban collectivization built upon clouds or islands in the seas. Both beautifully ethereal and densely urban, the built landscapes are reminiscent of ancient cities that emerge organically from the natural landscape, bringing together both natural environment and human organization. The great multitude of towering buildings transform at once into subtle, undulating hills of human occupancy. 

Are they real cities? Dream cities? Sites of battle between human inhabitants or seamless co–habitation? It begs the question in a particularly complicated age – of how much work we have to do in our inner journeys, seeking unity together as a civilization, before we may manifest outer cities harmoniously. 

Bruno Taut of ‘Die Gläserne Kette’ (the Glass Chain Society) drew similar utopian cities in 1920 amidst the political turmoil of the post-WWI years in Germany. Kazimir Malevich made models and drawings of utopian towers representing mystical subjectivity in early 20th century revolutionary Russia. Both conveyed a kind of spiritual aspiration. Except Iono’s work depicts not only ideal, visionary cities, but ones which are achieved inwardly through the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Mother – bringing down Light through the inner transformation of meditation. 

Do we have access to those realms and worlds beyond and above? Can our work in the yoga take us to more peaceful places where the collective grows together as One? Or are these landscapes in the clouds and spiritual seas depicting the battles ongoing in the timeless beyond? One thing is for certain: If the towers in Claire Iono’s Hidden Cities represent individuals gathered together into society at large, it is our inner journeys that reflect the rising sun of the ideal collective. 

In a city like Auroville – which all too easily polarizes trees and buildings instead of focusing on a seamless co-evolution of nature and civilization – the common work of us all is that of the path of unity. When we sincerely seek unity through process, city-building can be as beautiful as the landscapes of Claire Iono. Let us celebrate that unity joyfully every day that we can manifest it together.