dear Jorge,
sorry for not being in contact earlier but I have been DE-PLACED again – means – working abroad, away, somewhere else, not exactly where my family and friends are and where my preferred place is right now. It has been very intense, also very good but exhausting. Travelling, though one meets so many people, can be a quite lonely business. It needs flexibility and the ability to focus regardless where you are. One has to rely on resting in oneself … something I seem to have learned over the past twenty odd years. …. which brings me to the subject of migration.
yes, I suppose if you weren’t born in a taxi and brought up on the road everybody is ‘from home’. ‘Home’ is a vague place, most times more of a memory of a place then a place. ‘Home’ is a concept, something universal. So is the idea of migration – migrating means nothing but moving on and this does not even mean changing place. Moving itself is probably the most natural thing ‘one does’ – regardless; it can be with purpose, by accident or chance or in blissful innocence. Migrating to me means also changing context, physically or in ones mind, it can be a forced migration as a way of survival, an escape or a deliberate active act of looking for new territories, meaning or purpose.
Actually I was born in a hospital in the very north of Germany, not a ‘home’. But I grow up at home, which meant ‘in a somehow save place’ which was lovely as it was warm and I had my own bed, which is not necessarily a criteria for home, however. Going to school was somehow like forced migration – nothing I did with great pleasure… When I left ‘home’ at the ago of 18 to do an apprenticeship it was like opening the first of many ‘worlds’ I wanted to explore – and at the age of 18 I had already travelled far – in my mind, but also by taking my bicycle to many countries and after walking far.
I suppose I am still checking out what’s around the corner, I am still thinking and dreaming myself into new places and migrate into ‘better’ or just ‘different’ places, always on the search for … what exactly? …
Maybe let us talk about that…
… by the way, I saw your piece in the Lingam-exhibiton in Stockholm – I attach an image of it…
Christoph
