The trip to Linz
The first trip has as target Graz, looking for the possibility of a better place to live, where my boyfriend and me will feel comfortable and have a place to study. We rented a car and got on the road. Some PhD meetings and arrangements for projects were ahead, always hoping for a better future, one not possible to talk about yet…and us, enjoying for the first time the experience of traveling together.
The differences between German highways and Venezuelan roads are unbelievable: there is not a single damaged structure here, not a single hole; if it exists, the traffic is very slight. The air can blow on your face at great speed; the speed limits allowances are higher. The landscape is seen in a special way, with a very particular sensation of homogeneity.
On the way to Austria to the city of RIED, my camera always aware, takes the picture: it is the same as the last name of one my best friends, another artist: Bernardita. I think about her and imagine for a second how everything might be on the other side of the world. Sometimes a terrible nostalgia invades me and I just want to go back. I think of my name: Nayarí, which comes from Nayarit, a state in Mexico. The only information I have from that place is that it is a strong indigenous culture conserved almost intact since the beginning of time. My second last name: Méndez, was a city in former Mesopotamia. I wonder if one day I may stand in front of that sign, in a far away world that happen to have my name.
The radio plays rhythms of experimental music, Hanns’s particular selection. We stop in Linz, first possibility of big city in Austria. There we discover a huge signal of Starsbucks cafe in front of a Church, with the slogan “coming soon”, the green box covering almost 60% of the façade. I remember the work of Andrea in the last project in Jena: the humongous white wall saying secretly that some information will arrive soon. My boyfriend protests against capitalism and big chains and I agree but deeply dream on a wonderful “Chai latte”. We go in to find out what is going on and discover it to be a work of public art.
The first trip has as target Graz, looking for the possibility of a better place to live, where my boyfriend and me will feel comfortable and have a place to study. We rented a car and got on the road. Some PhD meetings and arrangements for projects were ahead, always hoping for a better future, one not possible to talk about yet…and us, enjoying for the first time the experience of traveling together.
The differences between German highways and Venezuelan roads are unbelievable: there is not a single damaged structure here, not a single hole; if it exists, the traffic is very slight. The air can blow on your face at great speed; the speed limits allowances are higher. The landscape is seen in a special way, with a very particular sensation of homogeneity.
On the way to Austria to the city of RIED, my camera always aware, takes the picture: it is the same as the last name of one my best friends, another artist: Bernardita. I think about her and imagine for a second how everything might be on the other side of the world. Sometimes a terrible nostalgia invades me and I just want to go back. I think of my name: Nayarí, which comes from Nayarit, a state in Mexico. The only information I have from that place is that it is a strong indigenous culture conserved almost intact since the beginning of time. My second last name: Méndez, was a city in former Mesopotamia. I wonder if one day I may stand in front of that sign, in a far away world that happen to have my name.
The radio plays rhythms of experimental music, Hanns’s particular selection. We stop in Linz, first possibility of big city in Austria. There we discover a huge signal of Starsbucks cafe in front of a Church, with the slogan “coming soon”, the green box covering almost 60% of the façade. I remember the work of Andrea in the last project in Jena: the humongous white wall saying secretly that some information will arrive soon. My boyfriend protests against capitalism and big chains and I agree but deeply dream on a wonderful “Chai latte”. We go in to find out what is going on and discover it to be a work of public art.
