Posts Tagged ‘interventions’
Interventions on the beach at Fanore
Today was a lovely day, part of it involved a journey to Fanore beach. I did something that I had not done for a while, that was go for a walk on the beach on my own with my old camera, sorry no images yet, I will have get the film processed! The sand was formed into miniature sand dunes with little islands of no dunes, in these islands I wrote words, such as: Love, unity, joy, smile, laugh and Free Tibet.
I also found the piece of silk from a Foxford blanket that had been a wedding present given to my parents. I had been carrying around in my camera case for years, taking photographs of it in different situations. The pale blue piece of silk was very fragile and had come away from the rest of the blanket. I repaired the length of silk with horses hair. It reminded me of the the white silk scarves that it is traditional for Tibetan Buddhists to give when they met someone. It also reminded me of the Tibetan prayer flags also known as Wind Horses. I took some photographs of the silk going across a large rock, in places it was a bridge and in there places it was a pale blue path. It was fun to do these playful interventions again.
The last time I did an intervention on Fanore beach was 7 years ago when I stuck bamboo leaves in the sand I had written words about the surrounding area on the leaves, then waited for the sea to come in and to see what would happen the leaves; how the words would be effected by the sea and how the leaves would be dispersed and float on the in coming waves, and I documented this. I enjoy the playful, poetic, absurdity of these interventions!
The Secret Garden
Spain (Camino to Santiago)
The back of our Lada Niva 4×4 was filled with the contents of James’ herb garden, which luckily was in pots! Lavender, Rosemary, Thyme, Mint, Tarragon, Fennel and a few more, along with lanterns and candle holders, painted tiles, pieces of oak from old wine barrels which had some words painted on them hoping to inspire the passing pilgrims. A couple of woven table cloths to cover the top of the rusty well, and a watering can. The location was the sight of an anciant Roman village, now all that there is is a dry well and two benches. Suddenly it was a little herb garden!
Every morning we brewed fresh coffee and water for tea that were left along with a little teapot and cups for the ceramony! We left a mound of oranges and lots of granola bars along with a few handy backpacking supplies like cloves of garlic, chillies and shallots! Every morning after leaving the fresh supplies James and I would light the candles and wind up the musical duck pond and dissapear quickly to give the pilgrims a very surreal experience in the middle of a lonely track!
For two months we left these little offerings for pilgrims. The idea of the donativo or donation system that we always used was so that anybody could afford to have something to eat and drink it didn’t matter if they had no money, people could leave what they could afford and what they felt happy leaving in the donativo box. This system worked really well for us and things seem to all level out in the end and everybody seemed to be happier including us! It was hard to believe what a huge difference this little idea made to people’s day, perhaps even their Camino.
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