Buch (Notes from blog)

1 Warm Welcome | 2 Working | 3 Preperation | 4 Finished drawing | 5 Finissage | 6 Afterthoughts (essay)


Warm Welcome

26. August 2022

What an incredible welcome I’ve gotten, and I am very happy to be here. Both the staff and the residents have been so warm and welcoming. The days have just flown by and have been filled with many good talks and encounters, and I have even been offered and given dinner 4 times (!).

I have been spending most of my days on the porch of my little yellow home, where I’ve built myself a little parasol to shield from the laser sun. From it I observe the area and draw, write and talk to the residents.

The language barrier is the only problem I’ve encountered so far, and most residents (all children and a lot of the older) speaks fluent German, but quite rarely English, and sadly my German is not much more than a few words..

So here is a little sweet and embarrassing story from some of my language struggles a few days ago:

22/8 (22:15)
One of the English speaking Afghan boys came up to me and told me his mother asked him to ask me if I would like some rice in an hour or so, which I told him I would love to.

An hour later the boy came with a big mountain of beautiful looking and arranged orange rice that was mixed with carrots and spices, with a separate salad, which tasted amazing. So sweet! After I had finished eating, an Afghan woman came out through the same entrance with another younger boy, and started walking toward me without looking too much in my direction, I was thinking it might be the woman who cooked me the lovely dinner and hoped to be able to thank her, but when she came to around 15 meters from me, she made a turn and walked over the playground and walked back on the other side. But on the other side she met the boy who had asked me earlier, and told him to check in on me, so he came up and asked me if I was done eating or wanted another portion. I told him I was super full and couldn’t get anything more in, and also told him to thank his mother so much from me, and that it had been amazing meal. When the boy left I could not see the woman anymore, and I of course would have liked to at least thank her from a distance.

Maybe 45 minutes later a woman, the same size, with a similar beautiful looking head scarf, comes out and walks slowly towards me. I am wondering if it’s her and if I’ll get my chance to thank her. She passes the path where the first woman had turned and crossed the play ground, and she comes all the way up to me and while passing, she looks at me, smiling, saying a quiet/shy hallo as she passes. I greet her back as she continues on the way to leave some kitchen trash at the containers. On her way back she passes me again, and because it has been much rarer for woman in the housing to greet and talk to me, and because of the possibility of missing my chance to thank her, I try to ask her if she is the one who gave me the lovely meal as she walks by. She stops, but does not understand my English. I try again, then in my three-word German with lots of body language… She looks confused at me, and asks me in German if I am hungry? I try to explain that I’m full, mimicking a full stomach, and after a few more tries to communicate from both of us, I try to say that it does not matter and I wish her a good evening, and she leaves. 2 minutes later her daughter comes out asking me in half English half German what I want, and I try to explain what had happened and what I had tried to ask and say to her mother. She nods, aha, ok, and runs back in again. 10 minutes later she comes out again with two flatbread sandwiches wrapped in tinfoil! I try once again to explain, while the girl looks a bit half annoyed at me, having to run all this errands and act as interpreter to this apparently confused man. I can see that my explanations don’t go anywhere so I bring out my phone and start typing this by now, quite complex story, into google translate, and the girl waits restlessly for my slow and stressed typing.. I just manage to write two clumsy sentences, trying to explain that another woman had given me food without me knowing who it was, and I had tried to ask her mother if it was her… The mother of the girl has also come out now and stands waiting for my mobile typing. The girls reads it in German nods again, saying uhu, ok, even though I had not even come close to explaining the whole story. She says something to her mother, and I try to give the rolls back, but they tell me to keep them. If not now, then for later.. I thank her and try to say sorry for the misunderstanding, but it just creates more confusion because she does not understand what I am trying to say. I then just thank her in German and wish her a good evening, after wishing me the same she goes back in. Sadly there was no laughing, none of them seemed to really have gotten what just happened, so I am a bit left with feeling/looking that I’ve have asked her for food, saying I was hungry… Pointing at my belly..

Very embarrassing, but at the same time such a warm and nice experience, so I try to just enjoy the embarrassment, which is kind of a beautiful and sweet emotion if you let it be that.




Working

5. September 2022

I’m drawing, writing and talking to residents throughout most of the days, and day by day I get to know both the space and its residents better. I’m as well beginning to grasp the extent of my blind spot and my relatively limited outlook here on the square/plaza, visiting, for four weeks…

But with that said, so many of the people who are using the space have continued being warm, open and curious. As an example (that could give a hint of that friendliness) I have by now been offered seven meals, plus several ice creams, teas, sodas and different snacks.

Drawing is at the center of the project I am working on here, and it has been quite a challenge in many ways. Besides the technique and amount of detail I work with being slow in itself, drawing is made much harder by me being such a central figure in the space, where everybody sees me – and I only draw people doing their thing without them being aware of me… But the children actually made it impossible. It was enought that they saw that I was even drawing, and they would came up like magnets forming a bigger and tighter circle around me while screaming out who and what I was drawing over the whole plaza.. The motif was always most certainly away or changed..

It also did not help to ask them to go down from my little porch, or even telling them I could not see anything at all anymore.. Of course I am extra easy to ignore when I’m not even speaking German…

So a week ago I built a little kid’s fence around my porch, it’s only 20-30 cm high, made with soft cordon ribbon that I found in the wagon (that even a 3-year-old can pull apart), tied to the now removed mobile wood-step and some small wood crates. It was a bit of a desperate experiment (with the touch of weirdness and humor attached to building a fence to keep people out), but it has been a success! And I think I’ve got down the child disturbances to 5%, while the adults response has been positive with laughs and good luck wishes. Of course there are still children climbing through every day, and the last mornings when I have come out it has even been torn to pieces, but I’m happy. Most children have understood that it was quite impossible to focus, and day by day they seem to think less of what I’m doing, and just doing their thing, without me being part of their play.

Together with the fence I also stopped showing my drawings to the children, because here are probably around 50-60 other kids who also wants to see, and every drawing.. And my house and my life, again and again… It has been a bit sad not being able to share the drawings with the children and I’ve decided to make a little show of my drawings on the last day, and have let them know that I will. It also feels nice for everyone who uses this space and wonder what on earth I could be drawing day out and in.. Even though it’s not at all as intrusive as photography/video, my drawings are still documenting them and their life, where they live and what they do…

I am planning to show the drawings I have made through the big glass walls of my yellow house. It will of course be a bit of a compromise because of the 2-layered reflecting glass in between, but it would be literally impossible to not get them ruined by small hands if presented in any touchable way… It will in the end also just be a kind of glimpse into my process and they will be presented as lose drawings. It’s regrettable that I have no means of presenting them to the residents in a form/composition that would resemble their final installation, where they will be hung so they form one large image, where the different drawings comes alive and interacts with the other drawings (which is somewhat my focus point in the image/installation I’m working on here).






In preperation

8. September 2022

I realized that I didn’t have a plan B, if my idea of presenting the drawings through the double pane windows wouldn’t work (for a number of reasons), so I made some experiments and was trying out different ways of hanging the drawings. In the end I left a drawing hanging to see if it would hold good enough over time.

Four hours later I hear this wroaar, and I turn to see a girl having found the drawing. Within 30 seconds she had gotten 20-25 children there, and the growing group got enough consensus in who the boy in the drawing was to get him there within those 30 seconds too. His eyes were SHINING, almost ecstatic, and at the same time so proud. Looking at me, looking at the drawing, back and forth. During the rest of the late afternoon I saw him come 5 times more, bringing different family members and friends. Every time with that incredible, amazed and proud eyes, looking at me.

I also think he got extra happy that I had drawn him when he had climbed up the 3 meter high swing structure, he loves climbing.




Finished drawing

16. September 2022

I finished my last drawings today, incredible that it’s already been 4 weeks! I look forward to sharing my drawings with the residents tomorrow, and also hope I haven’t blown up the children’s expectations too much, while keeping my drawings out of sight for all these weeks..

(Can you see the crows? I am happy I got them in, because they been waking me almost every morning between 06:00-06:30, landing on my roof, but sounding more like a wild bore in size on the thin metal roof.. Their Kraa’ing giving them away though..)




Finissage

17. September 2022

The finissage went really well and felt like a great ending on my stay, even though I must say it’s going to feel a bit strange to leave tomorrow.

It was also really nice to share my drawings with the residents, seeing them looking and exploring the space I’ve drawn, with all people and objects that they know so well. Many of the children making it a sport to figure out who every single person is.

Here are a few photos from the opening that can give some kind of idea of the day, even though it’s hard not being able to show any engaged eyes or expressions…


We got a few good hours until it got dark, but here many hours later some of the children are not finished, now using their flashlights. The light shining through the spaces in between the drawings, into the wagon. Really sweet…







Afterthoughts

23. September 2022

The four weeks are over and I have left the refugee housing and Buch. It was quite emotional to leave, and now almost a week later I feel still as emotional about it.

It was also the first and kind of ”main” reason for me coming here (and also for visiting the refugee camps in Athens in 2016). Getting past the vague “people” label with the distance that we so easily hide and somewhat shield our lives behind. I wanted the emotional connection and understanding that you get through meeting people in real life. Seeing, talking and glimpsing each others minds and hearts I believe to be the only way of making someone else real. Even though we follow news and the global situation on our screens, it does not make us feel and understand the reality of what we are looking at. Without the physical meeting and experience we also don’t realize how naturally we care for each other, and that we are here together.

The uncertain lives and futures of the many people I met is not something that I will forget. Throughout the residency my thoughts have constantly been going between the refugee situation and its connection to the bigger general situation, here in Germany, in Europe and in the global world.

The flaws of our system are so central to the situation. Our political system that is not capable of – or even built for – long term solutions, seems absurd. Incapable of looking more than a few years into the future or the past.

We have created a world where money is what matters and what everything is built up around and to a large extent even on. The by now pretty mad looking and in my opinion derailed concept of eternal economic growth lies at its center. A motor that has generated so much good but that sadly also is running on a use and abuse mentality, where the poor ARE the slaves of the rich and part of the fuel that is burnt, together with any natural resource available.

We are all trapped in the system but still refuse to acknowledge it has become our prison. Before our eyes, but unable to act or change, we can see how the monetary system and our way of living is hollowing out our societies, values, cultures, democracies and our human values. How it’s impacting both our physical and mental health. We can even see how we are wrecking the whole planet and its intricate eco-systems that has been developed through millions and millions of years, soon even over what seems to be the point of no return.

These are of course very big and complex systems, thoughts and concerns that I am trying to capture in a few clumsy words, but I don’t believe we can talk about or address the refugee situation without also looking at how we and the global world are linked to its creation. The connection to the many situations the refugees are fleeing from, where wars, oppressive regimes and poverty (with its lack of basic human rights, security, stability and future), are either a direct consequence of the control (or grab) of resources and power, or the fight for them.

But the refugee situation is also connected to “our” way of living at the other end too, which I believe is quite a central and overlooked part of the problem we are having with integration. Because if the aspect or foundation of our culture that I’ve just tried to describe is true, it must also be considered somewhat central to who we are. So what are our values we want people to adapt to? How sustainable is our “western” culture when taking this into account? Is this what we want? Creating and valuing our lives, freedom, stability, possibilities and material convenience around the accumulation and use of money? On the cost of others? What other values do we have and cherish, that are not based on consumption? What are our social and human values worth? Why are we not meeting the refugees at the border and helping them in any way we can? Does it make better sense to spend most of our time working and passively watching TV and screens?

I hope we, as a global community and society, will get our act together and take responsibility and control of who we are and would like to be.

I wish and hope that with time, a new culture will arise through the problems and global economic, social and natural crisis that we dive deeper into every day, even though the first and immediate answer will probably be the opposite.

Maybe living in and truly experiencing the crises and consequences is the only thing that could create the incentive for the change that we need? No matter what, I believe it will be our last chance.


A few photos from one of my last nights, that for me, at the moment, captured what lies there behind, somehow broadening the perspective of the situation and the refugee housing. The lonely person in the middle of the night, smoking his shisha. The concrete buildings of Buch being the immediate background to the refugee housing, the world in which it resides and belongs to. Then further away, the Moon and even Jupiter is slowly and quietly passing by, reflecting the light from the sun, giving us a more planetary perspective, pointing our attention to our connection to the universe and the grand mystery that seem to have been central to the human species and the societies we built throughout our history…