An improbable encounter with nature (NAT Art Residency - The Moment of Creation - 07/2022)

When did we become human?

We face this question during a first encounter with the art of our ancestors.

Are we more human than our ancestors were? What about decadence today? Overwhelming frenzy? Endless pursuit of pleasure? The irreversible self-destruction of humanity and nature?

We are exhausted under the weight of these questions and we are helpless.

We try to answer modestly

A response on our scale

By an encounter with nature where time goes by calmly

An encounter that take place by instants and moments of creation.

Moments of slowness and moments of waiting.

These instants and moments cannot be dictated because nature calls us at its own pace, but sometimes we are unable to follow.

It is the adult, preoccupied with reason, who intervenes first.

She claims to know. At the first supposed contact with nature, she interposes a brick wall, a barrier.

Is this her way of escaping nature? Is this her way of escaping her body, her interiority?

A more intimate look and an escape from all prejudice, allow her to break through this wall.

Therefore, she sees a window of an illuminated pink

As an invitation to return to a first instinct

To rediscover this play of shadows, this flickering light

A leap in time, brings us back to the heart of the intimacy of nature

Where we see our weaknesses arise, our fears swallowed up in a forgotten childhood

A childhood that once wandered nonchalantly in a nature that we now think is inaccessible

On a pink bed, the child spreads her feverish body.

The body touches the earth in an attempt to dissolve the barrier

And the fear of touching this earth sets in.

The power of nature disturbs us.

But one remembers the first question: How can one become human again?

How are we supposed to face a nature that we have decided to annihilate with childhood memories.

The return to childhood, one imagines it, as the return to the first cavity, to the origin,

The one whose opening is washed by daylight.

Our answer is to be found among trees, rocks, mountains, fog, plants, and insects

We first imagine a child who wants to find a peaceful sleep.

The child and the adult both rest, in the face of fear

Closing their eyes, in an incredible serenity.

In a transition from earth to water, the child wakes up

Her sleep is interrupted and a heaviness clings to her feet

However, her journey must continue.

The child and the adult help each other to push their common fears

Those fears, sometimes floating, sometimes drowning, move away

Leaving a dumbfounded look and a constellation of emotions

Which crash under the restless movement of the water, crashing on the rocks

The child and the adult unite again in a euphoric moment

Bursts of laughter and jubilation bear witness to their connection with nature

Now that the child finds her serene sleep

The adult regains her strength and decides to weave her plot

She abandons herself to nature, to the open arms of its trees

Gravity sways our body, intertwined by the branches

We return to our inner intimacy,

Where we confide our weaknesses and fears.

A perpetual fusion lets magical moments arise

These moments come to us in bits and pieces, only when nature allows it

Because nature is unconditionally generous

Like its stones of a thousand colours, its greens of a thousand shades

Its smells with a thousand perfumes, its music with a thousand melodies

Nature offer her elements to our senses majestically

For the first time, the meaning of an engagement with nature is clearer

It is not a superficial accumulation of slogans

That we pour recklessly through our lips

Engagement with nature begins with sincere acknowledgment of our mistakes and vices

This is not a universal narrative

This is a story of my moments, intrinsic to my senses, my emotions,

In an attempt to reconnect with nature, to become human again

This is my story, the story of an improbable encounter with nature.

Now it is your turn to tell yours...

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