Sometimes I feel
Like I don't have a partner
Sometimes I feel
Like my only friend
Is the city I live in
The city of angel
Lonely as I am
Together we cry

Under the bridge downtown
Is where I drew some blood
Under the bridge downtown
I could not get enough
Under the bridge downtown
Forgot about my love
Under the bridge downtown
I gave my life away

(Under the Bridge, Red Hot Chili Peppers, 1991)

Lead singer Anthony Kiedis wrote this song about his days as a heroin addict and the loneliness that went with it. The bridge mentioned is a place where he sometimes went to buy drugs and get high. The bridge turns to the ultimate symbol of despair; it is the end of the line. In his new project "Under the bridge" David Stewart portrays people living for the next "blow". Desperate faces in cruel surroundings, obstinately harming themselves: It is the brutal truth of a vicious circle. Stewarts' photographs show the decay, the sign of drug abuse are obvious. Veins, mistreated for years, still ensure that the poison reaches every cell of the body. So do the "Wires", Monica Herrera's "Veins of the city". Her drawings show power supply lines, meeting at electrical towers, the neuralgic points of the system. The infrastructure of the city reflects the human organism. Pulsating lifeblood circulates through the wires cutting the sky and leading in our homes, danger of high voltage is all around. Urban networks dominate our everyday life; they replaced the direct communication on the streets and allow us to stay at home. We telecommunicate from our isolated habitations. We suffer from a crucial lack of solidarity, no matter were we live: in a luxury apartment or in a cardboard home. We are all invisible. And we are all addicts; we need electricity, to keep our lives in motion, to continue. But the resources are limited. Electricity becomes more and more expensive and we are about to overcome our inhibitions. The promise every drug assures is deceiving, the inexorable disappointment leads to further attempts to escape our misery. But sometime the lights will go out definitely…

MONICA HERRERA earned a BA degree in Fine Arts from the National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving "La Esmeralda", in Mexico City, and an MFA in Sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Recently, she has exhibited at the ARCO Contemporary Art Fair, in Madrid, Spain and at the digital, installation, and sound art show "Lies that Bill Gates told me: Exploring the Digital Divide" in Melbourne, Australia.

DAVID STEWART is a late blooming photographer. He has been shooting seriously since 2000. He earned a BA in mathematics from Grinnell College in Iowa in 1994 and has worked since that time as a banking industry analyst. His photos have appeared in the University of Chicago Magazine and earned several Chicago camera club awards.

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