At night, we walk
Not yet winter, but nights are darker
I walk
The forest is awake, for nothing seems to sleep but men
At a slow pace, I walk
Neither blue nor green, but black
The blackness of the night, the silence of the forest
My sense of balance is lost
It is the forest perhaps that encourages me to stop
Fear reaches my body and it does not go away; but still, it does not stand in the way
Therefore, at a slow pace I walk
But what do I really fear in the night?
That the forest may whisper a secret I do not wish to know
No words, no chaos
It will undo what I was told
In myself
The forest communicates through vibrations
I listen: it moves
I move as well
Animated by this fear, by the desire to meet the forest
I walk
For the forest seems to welcome all except men
Yet the night, fresh, seems to emit its own clarity
Comforting me after every wound
So, why do I fear?
Is it the arrival of another, the one who has the strength to uproot the trees?
In fear I walk
It’s a journey to move away from home
To reinvent myself
To welcome the unknown,
Renounce what I was told
Through senses which feel both distant and near
The forest tells me that we should never walk alone
For the one is always dark
Perhaps that’s the silence I fear the most
Written while at MAGNITUDE Artist-in-Residency programme (curator: Anna Viola Hallberg)
BKN, Björkö, Sweden, August 2022
Try Not to Worry was written in response to an NHS message (received 12 Nov 2020, 06.16 am)
Submitted to PROVA 6: The RCA School of Arts & Humanities Research Journal, June 2021
Notes on Juliette is a fragment of my PhD dissertation, submitted on April 2021