IN JULY 2013 I WAS IN SPAIN on a beach in between two rocks a bay around eight the beach was packed with children collecting rocks and throwing them into the water a daughter in puberty got her picture taken by her mother on a rock pretending to dive into the sea three blond swedish girls learned how to sit in the sand folding their skirts up a child version of anna wintour was playing around someone proposed to someone friends had lit candles on the rocks she said yes everyone seemed pretty ok etc... my thought was why can i watch this for hours in silence and why cant i watch theater so long maybe because it left me alone it allowed me to watch i didnt have to relate i still dont really know and then i had the idea that i wanted to bring this beach to a theater i dont know how to do that but i ll give it a try i thought i started drawing and writing in july 2014 i sat on the terrace of my home in munich in a wheelchair i had worked too much and my body had said ‘enough’ i broke my foot and was immobile for five weeks 8
PREMIÈRE LEARNING HOW TO WALK
i sat there alone with my thoughts watching a tree grow a standstill watching landscapes round 1800 art was a disease called melancholy if u have time enough to paint landscapes and u didnt work something was really wrong with u and i wrote a text it turned out to be a description of a landscape emotional but also literal a landscape i couldnt see at that moment because of my immobile situation i wrote what i had seen what i wanted to see geographically the river the rocks the lake the woods were almost within my reach but moving costed already such a different practicality and energy i could describe and formulate these landscapes my immobility took over these last years i have been reading a lot of richard sennett the fall of public man tyranny of intimacy in which sennett describes how urban life developed over the years and also how theater manipulated public urban life the consequence of western civilisation is probably