Paper, ink, forest with fallen trees – Forces of nature occurring regularly seem to humble humans with its striking powers. Cycles of life shortened, linger around, ready for transformation sooner or later.

​

I wondered if there is a connection between persons and their relation with power, and his/her relation with nature? In parts where nature expresses herself through earthquakes, tsunamis, volcano eruptions, typhoons and heavy rainfalls, how do people cope with re-organizing their lives and homes multiple times when affected by natural disasters. A young man from Bali told that he didn’t learn to swim because the waves there are just too high, so kids would not go near the sea that is stronger and bigger than human can be. This also made me think of the trend of extreme sports, with people pushing their limits further to reach the top of the mountain, which apparently gives them a feeling of achievement and power. Why do some people have the need to excel, stand out, be remarkable, while we are all just part of everything. What happens to others around and our environment when our own movements are going faster, higher, stronger… It also reminds me of the expression: “Tall trees catch more winds.”

In my case, it made me feel humble and grateful for being alive. On Sunday 16 September 2018, we were caught by super typhoon Mangkhut in Hong Kong while staying at WING | Platform for Performance in Chai Wan Industrial Building on the 21st floor. It was the day that we had to fly out but all flights were cancelled and we would have to sit out this force of nature passing by the region in full power. The windows were shaking and started to crack from their frames. Soon the loft turned into a ship on a stormy sea with the windows as our sails we try to manage from flying off, for a while longer so that we could evacuate the dog, furniture and other material to other parts of the home. The wind was both sucking and pushing, like a vacuum cleaner gone epileptically wild. After securing most things, we went to the 11th floor to stay safer at their neighbor’s and spent time till evening. There, a temporary community gathered, that is what times of urgency also does for people, to reach out to each other and try to help where they can. I felt humbled by the experience and had my muscles aching for days after, from holding the ropes to try taming the windows. In the end, the glass of only two windows fell out, the rooftop garden on the 22nd floor was completely destroyed and wrecked.

​

A week after, lightening struck a few meters from me, in Phnom Penh. Again, I was shaken by how fragile life can be and how big nature is. It are these vibrations that I felt like letting out from my system. My body had absorbed all these oscillations and like a human seismometer the reverberations ran in flows of ink over a rolling paper. I wanted to let these vibrations go back in conversation with nature and installed them on a spot in the forest near the waterfall with a lot of fallen trees. Meters of paper lingered like waves into natural space, wind blowing it in movement. I wanted to see what the rain would do with it, so two days after I came back to not find any trace of the paper and that was fine for me too.