Suits. Tiny Spaces Deep Connections, Day 8

Another three-piece suit! Sebastian who works in the wood workshop proudly shows me his Wandergeselle suit, worn by German and Central European wandering craftsmen.

 

First landing. Tiny Spaces Deep Connections, day 7

Landing, but not for long. The sourdough starter stays behind in my new home, a former construction trailer, or Bauwagen in German. It is tempting to stay after 6 days of intense movement but I am curious about the Berlin Britzenale, site specific work by 20 artists at an allotment garden association. On my way there, the bus has a 45 minute delay and when I use the time to drink some coffee I get into a conversation with two women who are sitting next to me, embroidering. One of them works on a modernised version of a traditional Palestinian flower motive, the other is using an Egyptian traditional application technique. I love this kind of soft activism.

There are many inspiring projects (you can find all the different works HERE) and I have some nice conversations with artists and visitors. I rest for a bit in Julia Kiehlmann’s “Horticultural Housing” in one of the three beds representing different stages within a shared cycle: a protected space for growth and contemplation untouched by human intervention; a space of transformation and labour where organic material such as cut grass is collected and dried; and a space of regeneration and pause, equipped with a hay attress that invites visitors to lie down and linger. 

(first photo by Natalia Irina Roman)

 

 

The icebreaker. Tiny Spaces Deep Connections, Day 6

Rovereto - München - Berlin - Potsdam

I go for a short morning walk and wish I had more time to go out into the mountains. Having had the opportunity to stay two nights in the same place and work with some of the materials I brought means I need a bit more time to pack than I did on other days. I wonder where Gabriele slept and if I will bump into him again —I did see him for a second time yesterday, after we said goodbye, standing at the entrance of the supermarket, not openly asking for money but being open to gifts of food or otherwise. No trace of him though and no trace of many people in general, too early for most to go to work and too early for cafes to serve customers. I put some sourdough starter in small jars to hand out on my way to the final stop, Potsdam, and feed the remaining starter. 

 My reserved seat in the train is one of a four-seater with a table in the middle. I install myself and put the jar on the table and immediately get into a conversation when a young man joins us—us  meaning the starter and I. He is on his way to Innsbruck, a city that was on my wishlist as well because there are some Smiths living there: people from the Schmiede netwerk I am part of myself (more info about Schmiede here). He is happy to take a little jar with him and when he gets off at the Innsbruck station I take my jars to the restaurant wagon. 
When I get back a family of three —a girl and her grandparents— have overtaken the space, not aware that one of the seats they are sitting in is “my” seat. They seem to be a bit uncomfortable at first, having a stranger join them but as always, the sourdough starter is the icebreaker. When it is time to feed it, the girl and her grandmother start wispering and I hear her explain what it is I am doing. I ask her if she makes bread herself and she proudly nodds her head and tells me about her father who used to be the village baker like his father before him. When I offer her a small jar she hesitates but her granddaughter has no doubts. I see her eyes twinkle and I am reminded once more of the approach to life encompassing an openness, curiosity and lightness that is the trademark of children and so often gets lost when growing up.  

The train arrives with a delay of over an hour in München but there is enough time to leave some seedbombs just outside the station. Next stop Berlin, the train is spacious and the restaurant wagon has proper tables and benches and a waiter who takes my order after I installed myself there to do some writing and embroidering. It is a warm day and my travel companion is hungry again, and when the train waiter takes his break we chat a bit about working in a train, his way and my way. Whenever we stop, I go out on the platform to leave my traces and when there is a longer stop and I aim for a little plant oasis inbetween the trails, the conductor tells me that on that exact spot, a little christmas tree lived for a while, growing bigger and bigger until it got in the way and then they removed it. “We put it outside the cantine for railway staff in the station” he says, “and it is still there, thriving.” I like his story and he tells me he likes my trailmaking and guerilla gardening action. I give him some seedbomds. “Maybe the christmas tree will like some company”, he says and smiles. 

At Berlin Hauptbahnhof I throw the cosmos daydream bombs at the edge of a building site just outside the main entrance. The S-Bahn brings me to Postdam Griebnitzsee where the station is filled with the sounds of swallows, the ceiling is covered in their nests and for a while I admire their amazing flying skills and cheerful presence.

 

Angels. Tiny Spaces Deep Connections, Day 5

Rovereto

The plan had been to work in the building of La Foresta that is situated in the train station of Rovereto and meet many people, but it turned out that the building couldn’t be entered for technical reasons and because of that, most people weren’t there. It is a challenge for them, because at the moment they can only organise activities outside, but it has also created extra opportunities to work in public space. I go to the community garden that is located next to a school, which makes it a great place to easily work there with school classes and teach the children about nature and gardening. 
Back at the bench outside La Foresta I talk to a few people who are involved, one of them an anthropology student with whom I happily discuss Tim Ingold, somebody I admire and met a few times, once during the Sideways walking festival and when he was lecturing in Weimar in the time I was studying there. He is a renowed anthropologist who researched and wrote about many subjects that matter deeply to me, one of them being the human act of creating lines and how f.e. musical notation, writing, walking, singing, weaving and artistic design are related.
In the afternoon there is a workshop about art and nature on a field in front of a church and since it is in Italian I mainly observe. Afterwards I meet Flora from the Forno Vagabonda, a mobile social oven that sometimes travels through villages on an electric cargo bicycle. We talk about sourdough and she tells me how she only feeds her sourdough starter rye breadcrusts. Again I wish I had more time to spend with all these lovely people here. There is so much to learn! I am honoured when she accepts a little jar of my starter.
On my way back home —Martina’s place— I meet Gabriele, a young homeless man and we talk for a while, which means he does the talking, in Italian only, and I listen, not understanding most of his words, but understanding most of what he is saying. I don’t think he often has people listening to him. He asks me if he can’t come with me and I am not sure if he is serious or not, anyway the answer is no. “Gabriele, like the angel” I say and he smiles. We hug and I leave.
In the evening I bake sourdough crackers for Martina. Another beautiful day but I am extremely tired. So many impressions, meetings, exchanges, thoughts, landscapes, so much movement. This slow journey is so much faster than any of my slow journeys have been. Still, most people would have taken a plane to get from Galicia to Potsdam. I am wondering how long it takes if you try to do it as efficient—time-wise—as possible.

Old nomads and new landscapes. Tiny Spaces Deep Connections, Day 4

Civitaveccia - Roma - Bologna - Rovereto

I slept like a rose in the red poppy room (Papavero, the other 2 rooms are called Ortensia and Mimosa) in a B&B in the centre of town. I wake up early and go for a walk. The first seedbombs of the day I leave in a little field around a tree under a permanent rainbow. The rainbow colours are everywhere around this square, a symbol of peace, tolerance and the acceptance and embracing of otherness. Since the 70s it has been used as a symbol by the LGBTQ community. Civitavecchia Pride, a 3 day event, is starting today but I have a train to catch to Rome, from there to Bologna and then Rovereto, where La Foresta is located.
The train to Rome stops at many small stations, sometimes in the middle of fields, and the seedbombs land inbetween abundantly growing plants and crops. 

The landscapes—if you can call them that—at the main station in Rome couldn’t be more opposed to each other. We arrive in a far corner of the complex where everything is rough and wild and chaotic and I think my seeds will like it here, but what I mean of course is that I like it here. I also like it when I arrive at the other side though, where the train to Bologna is already waiting. The area in front of the buffer stops or bumper blocks has been turned into a little meadow with abundantly growing plants and yellow flowers. In the middle there is an olive tree. A water system keeps the plants and the tree in good shape and I think my seeds might like it here as well but on second thought I am starting to doubt: cosmea thrive in poorer soils with little care. No reason not to leave them there: as Masanobo Fukuoka says, seeds know best themselves and we human beings can try to create the perfect—according to our human minds—conditions for them, especially when we want to use what they produce, but sometimes it is better to see what happens and how nature organises itself. It didn’t need us to thrive before we existed and it won’t if one day humans are no longer around.

When leaving the station 40 minutes after I arrived I think about the people who got really excited about my itinerary when I told them where the trains would bring me. Leon! Valencia! Barcelona! Rome! All beautiful cities indeed, but the focus during this journey isn’t on visiting cities. I’ve never been in Rome. And I still haven’t really. “What a pity!” somebody said, “Why don’t you stay longer in those places?” “Because I am working and I’ve got a specific task to fulfill” I answered, “I am not on holiday”. I rather stay in nature or villages or small cities anyway so I don’t feel any regret when my 2 hours in Bologna are spend in and around the railway station,. First I explore the area below ground level where there is no daylight but a resting area filled with plants that are kept alive with artificial light and a little birch tree that upon inspection turns out to be made out of plastic. I double check the other plants, but they are indeed all alive and breathing. Breathing in their own way: exchanging gases—oxygen and carbon dioxide— through their microscopic pores—stomata— and roots. Whereas human beings inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, plants do the opposite.

The last stretch to Revereto I embroider a question while the 3 people next to me and the 4 on the other side are all on their phones. It is a bit crammed but fortunately I have fed the sourdough starter on the train to Bologna. It stands quietly on the little table and nobody takes an interest in it.
Martina welcomes me at the station and we sit for a while on the bench in front of the building of La Foresta, a Community Academy, catching up. When I looked into places that could be interesting to visit on my journey, La Foresta was on the top of my list because of their work with community building, education, art and gardening. When I got in touch I got an answer from Martina, who has been working there since three years, but who I have known for more than 10 years and hadn’t been in touch with in the last years. We once spent time together in the Nomadic Village on a mountain in Austria and afterwards in a former factory surrounded by other artists during Schmiede. It was a complete surprise that she is here and a joy to see her again.

To be at sea. Tiny Spaces Deep Connections, Day 3

 At sea - Civitavecchia

The hour of the wolf. I wake up in the middle of the night, slightly sad I missed out on the evening entertainment, if there was any. There is a casino but I am not sure if it opened. Surely at least one of the bars stayed open, and there might still be people up and about, especially the ones who have a sleeping chair instead of a cabin. I feel privileged, sharing my ferry room with a bubbling jar only. The round window is big enough to sit in and I spend some time there, staring out over the moonlit water. It is almost painfully beautiful. It isn’t silent, I guess it is never really silent on a boat, with its machines pumping to get us all across, but I feel silent. The starter is always silent, although when it is peaking and bubbly, it defenitely makes sounds. 
In the morning I explore and get lost a few times. There is a spa on board with a sauna and a jacuzzi with a view and an open air swimming pool on the top deck. I install myself in the large room with the stage, now empty. People are drinking coffee or watching the tv in the corner. A curious little boy comes up to me, wondering what I am doing and I explain that there is something alive in the jar that you can use to make bread. He looks at it in wonder and I am not sure if he understands or how he has translated this information but he seems to have realised something and when his mother comes to see if he is bothering me, he explains to her what is in the jar. “It is alive!” he says, “and it makes bread!” She laughs and tells him: “Yes, that is how your grandmother always makes bread, didn’t you know?’ He shakes his head, but I think that next time when he visits his grandmother he will remember.
At some point, when we are are still hours away from dry land, a little bird lands and flutters around in the outside bar. It doesn’t look like it belongs here, it is either a stowaway or it got caught in a strong wind and was blown in the wrong direction. Or maybe not, maybe it is a travelling bird. 
All outdoor surfaces are slowly being covered in a thin layer of sea salt. It foms oval shapes on the decks and when you slide your hand over the railing, it is covered in salt. I start collecting it from areas that aren’t in contact with any polluting agents, thinking it might be nice to use it when baking bread later. 
It feels like a desperate act to throw seedballs overboard here, how long will it take for them to reach a shore? And if they do, will the seeds survive the salty water? I give it a go anyway, but only when land is in sight. Italy, Civitaveccia.

Yes and no. Tiny Spaces Deep Connections, Day 2

Valencia - Barcelona - Civitavecchia

I work in the area of the hostel from where I can see the trains. Sitting in front of the window I feed the starter, fill jars, write labels. People who just got off a train or people who are about to travel pass by, some stop to look at what I am doing, somebody even tries to scan a QR code through the window. When I make a hand gesture to invite him inside he shakes his head and points at his wrist where there is no watch but I know what he means.
Matilde arrives and we talk about her Institute of linear Research and Sociópolis, an iconic “unfinished” social housing urban development in the outskirts of Valencia about which she wrote her PhD. She gives me a little tour through de Estacion del Norte, showing me her favorite parts. In the train to Barcelona I have an aisle seat, something i normally don’t like. When I travel on a train I prefer to sit at the window so I can look out at the landscape. This journey, working on the train and meeting people comes first and an aisle seat is more practical because it is easier to move around if I want to. It is also less private, and since there is a performative aspect to what I am doing, the more visible I am, the better. This time there is a restaurant car (I think that is what the wagon containing a place where you can get drinks and snacks is called), there are no proper tables or seats but you can hang around, drink coffee, stare out of the window or chat with other passengers. A man who is drinking his coffee next to me inquires after the suit and I tell him my story. He gives me a question, Sí o no, explaining that when he was younger, he was often in doubt about or even fearful of things that were new to him but lately he started just saying yes more. It had brought him in some awkward situations but it mainly gave him a lot of wonderful experiences. When I return to my seat I embroider his question while thinking about it, about his “yes”, but also about the art of saying “no” when you know it will disappoint somebody but it is necessary in order to take care of yourself.

It is strange and normal at the same time to arrive in Barcelona, a city I know so well because I lived there for many years. I hope to meet two Austrian artists who are visiting the city and I hang around the Columbus monument that is loved by many but equally despised by many—it is a symbol of colonialism—, trying to organise a meeting point but in the end there is too little time. I leave a little jar with sourdough starter on the chair I was sitting on and make my way to the ferry. I don’t remember the last time I travelled in this way, it will be a whole new adventure, 22 hours at sea.