Admittedly, I was never a fan, but how I hated those planes last night. I was walking through a dark, nocturnal forest between Lage Vuursche and Hilversum. Where, in the silence, I could have listened extra carefully to creaking twigs, shuffling insects, whispering trees and the occasional owl, I heard above all how happy we all are that we can spend another day up and down to Rome after corona, how nice that live meeting in Dubai is after a year and a half of Zoom and how soon Zeeland oysters can come to Lyon. Schiphol is back and we will know it. Fuck CO2.
A project by artists Claire de Ribeaupierre and Massimo Furlan, Dans la Forêt is so bright in its simplicity that you would almost forget it is art. But as it goes with landscape or site art: as soon as you look at an everyday thing and say it's theatre, you start looking at it differently. Not that the duo had specially ordered those planes, but with that noise, it became more palpable how much we miss silence in our lives. That's at least one benefit of such a meditative walking artwork.
Walking through the forest is always pleasant, and in silence it can be beneficial, but at night, in the dark, a dimension is added. Because you walk in a group of about 20 people, in goose step three metres apart, you learn to trust your predecessor and can pay more attention to your surroundings. How does moss feel on your shoes, what is that green light doing there, how many times have we actually passed this crooked oak tree?
Because yes, you don't walk seven kilometres from A to B, but move in squares around a central point. In the dark it doesn't matter, because every tree looks different when viewed from a different angle. And then, when around 10.30pm the planes fall silent, and the A27 has made a few last attempts to reinforce its misplacedness with a hefty dot of gas, peace really settles in the mind and in the forest. When else would you walk for two hours over game trails and cart tracks in the dark?
Something glows at the end, and it would have been OK with me if it had remained just a vague glimmer. Now there was a bit of theatre added, and it stood out a bit pale against the spectacle the trees had been making for two hours. Silent.
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