The World Ledger: Field Archive and a Visual Archaeology across 73 Countries and Counting
In 1995, Joseph Pisani left New York to chase his Impossible Pledge: How to Do Everything in Just One Lifetime. Over three decades, across 73 countries and counting, he has intentionally avoided the easy route to gather the visceral grit and friction of circumstance that defines his work. Without set itineraries, and armed with little more than a backpack, a camera (his Second Sketchbook), and a journal, he follows what he calls Serendipitous Mischief: unplanned detours, chance encounters, and culture shock, the raw material from which his paintings are born.
«There have been rough moments along the way,» Pisani notes, «but it's the trouble spots that often bear the most vivid memories. »
These experiences are collected: first, as the Field Archive, a selection of key experiential coordinates; second, as the World Ledger, the complete catalog of all countries traversed. Each represents a place where experiences were compressed into inspiration, and where a fleeting moment was captured for and potentially translated into a permanent ledger of canvas and pigment.
There have been rough moments along the way, but it's the trouble spots that often bear the most vivid memories.
Field Archive: Significant Waypoints from more than Three Decades in Motion
This archive documents defining encounters across 73 countries in pursuit of his Impossible Pledge. These are the raw coordinates of the road: the friction, the beauty, the danger, and the culture shock that define his practice and fuel his Existential Landscape paintings.
- The Self-Guided Safari: Tracking migration paths alone across Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Namibia; the proximate, breathing darkness of a tent in the African bush: hippos grazing around the truck and lions calling in the distance, the source material for the Sounds of the Darkness series.
- Nevada, USA: A violent car crash in 1995, in the desert about 30 minutes outside of Las Vegas. Pisani was writing in his journal in the back seat when the car skidded off the road and flipped. Bloodied and shaking off shock, he declined the ambulance that arrived to take him away, turning his focus instead to the wreckage. Amidst the debris and his scattered possessions, he found his journal, so tattered, torn and covered in dust, it was barely recognizable. It was open to the last entry, with the page stirring in the hot desert wind.
- Jaipur, India: During the Royal Teej, a massive ceremonial parade moving through the Old City, Pisani snuck past securtity and blended into the press pool, photographing the event from within the procession itself, surrounded by traditional dancers and decorated elephants.
- Southern India, The Kanthari Documentation: A three-month immersion mapping a charity's work across the subcontinent of India. This culminated in an exhibition and charity auction hosted by an auctioneer from Sotheby's Zurich.
- Kathmandu, Nepal: Immersion in the chaotic, spice-choked sensory overload of the Asan Tole market at rush hour. After leaving Myanmar due to illness and a hospital stay in Bangkok, he followed the call of a Bob Seger song that beckoned him to the city, and Nepal in general.
- Cairo, Egypt: The immense, historical weight of being alone inside the Great Pyramid.
- Iron Curtain Roulette: A journey spinning through the atmospheres of the former Soviet Union, which required bribing military men and border guards to gain entry into a country that doesn’t officially exist.
- Siem Reap, Cambodia: The act of "playing Indiana Jones" amidst snakes and the rocky ruins of Beng Mealea.
- Flores, Indonesia: The otherworldly chromatics of the Colored Lakes at sunset.
- Yangon, Myanmar: Confronted the yellow-fluorescent chill of a hospital ward at dusk while battling high fever and seeking urgently needed antibiotics.
- The Red Sea, Egypt: The narcotic tension of a claustrophobic cave dive at 63 meters, followed by an extended decompression hovering ‘in the blue.’
- El Nido, Philippines: Exploring sharply carved, desolate paradise in the form of uninhabited islands filled with monitor lizards and palm trees.
- Sri Lanka: A deliberate pursuit and discovery of serendipity in the land Serendip was named after (culminated in the Oh Sweet Serendipity solo exhibition that traveled from Zurich to Austria, then to the United Nations under the patronage of the Sri Lankan ambassador).
- The First Expedition, 1995: The foundational solo journey through Europe where observation was first translated into sketch, pigment, and performance.
- Jerusalem: Walking the historic Path of Sorrows.
- Greece: Getting stranded on a Greek Island and needing to stowaway on a ferry to escape rather than waiting a week for the next boat with space.
- Southern Jordan: Slept without a tent in the desert’s expansive silence. Played guitar in the middle of Wadi Rum, then lit a Cuban cigar and listened to the amplified crackle of the tobacco filling the moonlit sky.
- Battambang, Cambodia: The rhythmic, slightly precarious journey on a "bamboo train."
- Muang Sing, Laos: A bike ride to the Chinese border. The border guards let him venture into China on foot, but held his passport as ransom until he returned.
- Prague, mid-1990s: Living, painting, and performing within the electric atmosphere of a newly unlocked country tasting its first years of freedom.
- The United States: The initial survey of home, a coast-to-coast drive across 44 states.
- New Zealand: The chromatic atmospheric sky and sulfurous national parks.
- Arizona, USA: Confronting the exposed strata of geological time in the Grand Canyon and playing an impromptu concert at a local music bar.
- Fez, Morocco: Learning his way around the labyrinthine souk where smells and history abound.
- The Supermarket Ritual: A deliberate, grounding act of visiting a grocery store in every new country visited, a method to learn about the culture and discover new foods.
The World Ledger: 73 Countries and counting
The following list catalogs the specific countries Pisani has navigated in the ongoing pursuit of his Impossible Pledge: How to Do Everything in Just One Lifetime. Each country is a waypoint in the Visual Archaeology of Slipping Time, forged into the permanent ledger of art and memory. This pursuit is far from over.
- Andorra
- Australia
- Austria
- Bahamas
- Belgium
- Bosnia & Herzegovina
- Botswana
- Bulgaria
- Cambodia
- Canada
- China
- Croatia
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Egypt
- England
- Finland
- France
- Georgia
- Germany
- Greece
- Holland
- Hong Kong
- Hungary
- Iceland
- India
- Indonesia
- Ireland
- Israel
- Italy
- Japan
- Jordan
- Kosovo
- Laos
- Liechtenstein
- Luxembourg
- Macedonia
- Malaysia
- Maldives
- Moldova
- Monaco
- Montenegro
- Morocco
- Myanmar (Burma)
- Namibia
- Nepal
- New Zealand
- Philippines
- Poland
- Portugal
- Qatar
- Romania
- Serbia
- Singapore
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- South Africa
- Spain
- Sri Lanka
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Thailand
- Transdniester
- Tunisia
- Turkey
- USA (44 States)
- Ukraine
- United Arab Emirates
- Vatican City
- Vietnam
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe