I met Camilla at the Mangkulturellt centrum where we were going to have lunch first. I was about 7 minutes late for the meeting. I thought she would already go down to the cafe and start eating or at least have a drink. But she waited for me at the entrance in the parking lot with her smartphone. She looked very professional. From the email communication we'd had I knew that she was a curator. I didn't apologize for being late . . . I'm starting to think that Swedish people are very punctual people though, probably even more so than the Swiss. I was still in a happy mood from the free-flowing but short intimate walk I had had in the morning with Katrin. And something inside of me was decidedly warding off a tendency towards a certain power dynamic that often goes with curator-artist relationships. I had no interest in trying to impress this woman by eloquently talking to her about my work or seducing her into a very diligently crafted intimate walk experience. It was a buffet-style lunch with exclusively vegetarian mezze dishes and lots of raw salads. I think we both were quite pleased with the choice to have lunch here. We decided to eat outside at a small round bistro-style table. We were the only two sitting outside despite the warm, sunny weather. While eating Camilla started asking me questions about my work and how I had ended up in this residency. She seemed genuinely curious and I felt I managed to give plausible answers. I noticed that I was avoiding eye contact though. I had spotted a 'hard face curator'-look a few times when my articulation had been especially slow and maybe a bit clumsy. So to counteract a feeling of not living up to the professional standard of this meeting, I preferred to gaze out into the lush greenery of the trees and meadow while talking about my work. She went back inside to get some more water and then it was my turn to ask her about her work. I got the feeling that she didn't want me to reveal her exact position in the art scene in this text so I won't go into that. But she talked very eloquently and enthusiastically about her job.
Talking about intimacy she had to think of an experience she had this summer. She recently bought a sailboat and went out sailing with a sailing teacher and her two kids. Spending 3 days together in the very limited space of that sailboat was to her the essence of intimacy because you cannot escape and you share everything. I imagine sailing teachers must be quite skilled in negotiating intimate space.
After a coffee and tea we crossed a meadow with ducks and geese and started out on our walk towards the lake. Only then did I realize that Camilla was wearing plateaux shoes which were not the best gear for that sort of swampy terrain. She was eager to get on the dry path but was actually managing fine. A bit later during the walk, when we had already reached a higher level of ease with each other, she commented that she hadn't thought we were going to walk on these nature trails. After a short pause she admitted with a self-amused smile that she had dressed for the paved streets of Fittja and with the intention to look smart. The walk was actually really enjoyable and I could sense that Camilla was impressed by the beauty of our surroundings as much as I was. She repeated several times that most Stockholmers didn't even know that this existed out here and connected Fittja only with problems as unemployment, crime etc. As time passed and as we continued walking at a leisurely pace I became less busy with the fact that I was on a walk with a curator and felt more and more like I was walking with a friend. Maybe people would have easier access to intimacy if they were less prejudiced.
Camilla apparently had received a message from Johana back at the konsthall and was checking the public transport timetable on her iphone to see when she could catch a bus to the konsthall. She was actually starting a two-week internship at the Botkyrka konsthall this very day because she wanted to see with her own eyes how another art institution functions from the inside. I find this very cool. I mean the fact that despite her experience and her high-rank position, she goes back to being an intern to broaden her horizon and to learn something new in a different context.
We decided to slowly head back so she would make it back on time to drop by at the konsthall and greet Johana. But before I proposed to do an exercise. I thought Camilla (being a curator (-;) might enjoy an extra element in this walk apart from nature and our natural flow of dialogue. I let her choose between 3 tasks: 1) being present in silence together 2) laughing meditation 3) singing together
She found being present in silence together most intriguing I think, but wanted to try laughing meditation because she had never done it. So we did first 5 minutes of laughing and then 5 minutes of sitting in silence. Because the exercises required lying and sitting down and the grass was too wet, we tried to find the wooden pier we had spotted before but couldn't locate it anymore. While slowly walking back on the lookout for an appropriate platform for our exercises, Camilla suddenly asked me a very confronting question: 'So what's your impression of me so far?' I asked her if she often asks these kinds of questions to strangers. She said no never. That she finds it a very intimate question and a kind of stupid one in fact, but that she thought she'd take the chance to ask it anyway since we're both together in the safe frame of this art project. I found it difficult. I tried to be as honest as possible. Above all I didn't want to come across as polite and evasive. So I told her about my prejudices of curators and about the power gap and said that I had definitely sized her up as a city girl. And that I could mainly talk of my own perception and within that was quite amazed how comfortable I had come to feel with her in the course of the walk. I wasn't very straightforward. That's not my strength. But looking back I can say that my first impression of Camilla had been that of a tough and intellectual curator , but in the course of the walk I found her very human and beautiful and at some point even vulnerable which touched me. Of course I couldn't keep myself from asking her for her impression of me. She said that she perceived me as a happy person. But that I can also be quite serious. And that I was a very kind person. Laughing together felt very good and therapeutic. Then we did the sitting in silence and being present. The exercise is not primarily about locking in on each others' gaze, but it's ok to see each other and allow oneself to be seen. I think I said something along those lines as an introduction. It became quite obvious that this exercise was challenging for Camilla. She kept cracking up when looking at me and said that she first had to look in the other direction to concentrate. It did feel very intimate and confronting and the few times we really did look at each other we smiled with encouragement and gratitude I felt. Afterwards we talked and she said something very beautiful. She said that when I smile my eyes light up and I shine. That I am jewel. 'We all are in our own way.' She said it in her own way and it was so unexpected (especially coming out of the mouth of a curator) that it managed to touch me very deeply. I almost wanted to cry. I experienced this as a moment of true intimacy, so much so that it scared me a bit.
Talking about intimacy she had to think of an experience she had this summer. She recently bought a sailboat and went out sailing with a sailing teacher and her two kids. Spending 3 days together in the very limited space of that sailboat was to her the essence of intimacy because you cannot escape and you share everything. I imagine sailing teachers must be quite skilled in negotiating intimate space.
After a coffee and tea we crossed a meadow with ducks and geese and started out on our walk towards the lake. Only then did I realize that Camilla was wearing plateaux shoes which were not the best gear for that sort of swampy terrain. She was eager to get on the dry path but was actually managing fine. A bit later during the walk, when we had already reached a higher level of ease with each other, she commented that she hadn't thought we were going to walk on these nature trails. After a short pause she admitted with a self-amused smile that she had dressed for the paved streets of Fittja and with the intention to look smart. The walk was actually really enjoyable and I could sense that Camilla was impressed by the beauty of our surroundings as much as I was. She repeated several times that most Stockholmers didn't even know that this existed out here and connected Fittja only with problems as unemployment, crime etc. As time passed and as we continued walking at a leisurely pace I became less busy with the fact that I was on a walk with a curator and felt more and more like I was walking with a friend. Maybe people would have easier access to intimacy if they were less prejudiced.
Camilla apparently had received a message from Johana back at the konsthall and was checking the public transport timetable on her iphone to see when she could catch a bus to the konsthall. She was actually starting a two-week internship at the Botkyrka konsthall this very day because she wanted to see with her own eyes how another art institution functions from the inside. I find this very cool. I mean the fact that despite her experience and her high-rank position, she goes back to being an intern to broaden her horizon and to learn something new in a different context.
We decided to slowly head back so she would make it back on time to drop by at the konsthall and greet Johana. But before I proposed to do an exercise. I thought Camilla (being a curator (-;) might enjoy an extra element in this walk apart from nature and our natural flow of dialogue. I let her choose between 3 tasks: 1) being present in silence together 2) laughing meditation 3) singing together
She found being present in silence together most intriguing I think, but wanted to try laughing meditation because she had never done it. So we did first 5 minutes of laughing and then 5 minutes of sitting in silence. Because the exercises required lying and sitting down and the grass was too wet, we tried to find the wooden pier we had spotted before but couldn't locate it anymore. While slowly walking back on the lookout for an appropriate platform for our exercises, Camilla suddenly asked me a very confronting question: 'So what's your impression of me so far?' I asked her if she often asks these kinds of questions to strangers. She said no never. That she finds it a very intimate question and a kind of stupid one in fact, but that she thought she'd take the chance to ask it anyway since we're both together in the safe frame of this art project. I found it difficult. I tried to be as honest as possible. Above all I didn't want to come across as polite and evasive. So I told her about my prejudices of curators and about the power gap and said that I had definitely sized her up as a city girl. And that I could mainly talk of my own perception and within that was quite amazed how comfortable I had come to feel with her in the course of the walk. I wasn't very straightforward. That's not my strength. But looking back I can say that my first impression of Camilla had been that of a tough and intellectual curator , but in the course of the walk I found her very human and beautiful and at some point even vulnerable which touched me. Of course I couldn't keep myself from asking her for her impression of me. She said that she perceived me as a happy person. But that I can also be quite serious. And that I was a very kind person. Laughing together felt very good and therapeutic. Then we did the sitting in silence and being present. The exercise is not primarily about locking in on each others' gaze, but it's ok to see each other and allow oneself to be seen. I think I said something along those lines as an introduction. It became quite obvious that this exercise was challenging for Camilla. She kept cracking up when looking at me and said that she first had to look in the other direction to concentrate. It did feel very intimate and confronting and the few times we really did look at each other we smiled with encouragement and gratitude I felt. Afterwards we talked and she said something very beautiful. She said that when I smile my eyes light up and I shine. That I am jewel. 'We all are in our own way.' She said it in her own way and it was so unexpected (especially coming out of the mouth of a curator) that it managed to touch me very deeply. I almost wanted to cry. I experienced this as a moment of true intimacy, so much so that it scared me a bit.
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