Where We Find Ourselves

I was standing by a waste container in the street,

looking in particular at iron rods that were stacked, removed from the house next door.

Some of them still had concrete attached which caught my attention.

A man joined me, apparently a construction worker.

He lit a cigarette.

We started talking.

I said a bit hesitantly

“...I am an artist.”

That seemed to be the green light.

An icy wind set in, as if it came from Putin’s steppes.

Oh yes, I thought.

In construction, free women like me may not be welcome.

Men are in charge. All right, then..

I have seen how harshness becomes normal — and how men become its victims too.

He pointed at the skip filled with rubble and said:

“This is mine.”

(That implied: I am in charge here.)

I was not interested in contesting his claim.

It was the way he asserted it that felt intimidating.

His eyes.

I replied that his claim might be difficult to defend,

since the container was standing on public ground.

But his aggressive attitude made me leave quickly,

assuring him that I would leave everything neatly in the container.

The cold did not go away when I walked off.

It lingered.

I took it with me inside.

My working routine is my answer.

Trust.

Waiting.

Repeating routines.

Interpreting.

Making.

Waiting has value in the studio.

It is the practice of suspending judgment, being mild, while continuing to move,

not letting judgment shut down the process.

This practice may be one of the most meaningful possible spin-offs of art into society.

Perhaps the work is to pause

long enough

to hear the quieter voice first.

Where we find ourselves again.

I am reading — or rather, listening to — The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan.

Written in the Middle Ages, around 1400 CE, it feels surprisingly current and feminist.

In Christine’s time, there seems to have been a kind of debate between the sexes — much like the one we are living through now. At first, she writes extensively about fighting women: heroic, strong, unbeatable militant warriors who kill for the greater good. I find myself hoping to encounter something else as well — reflections on peace, care, on relationships, on slowing down, on repetition, on cyclical labour. Not the heroic stories we have heard for too long. Not the narrative of linear progress.

What strikes me is how long systems of domination have already been with us. We still live inside the afterlife of that medieval debate.

Men and women alike. Systems are real — and we all embody them, on either side.

Perhaps we can never truly do justice to people by simply placing them within power systems.

I have known men who consciously distanced themselves from Nazi ideology, even while carrying the weight of German history. I know people who live within polluting systems, benefit from them — as I do — and still speak critically about them. People who grew up in families shaped by colonial power, yet chose different values. I have known people who hardened because they felt unheard, and others who stayed soft despite having every reason not to.

Histories from long ago do not only live in books or institutions. They surface quietly, in everyday situations —

where we find ourselves, vulnerable .