Strait
1: a archaic : a narrow space or passage
b : a comparatively narrow passageway connecting two large bodies of water —often used in plural but singular in construction
c : isthmus
2: a situation of perplexity or distress —often used in plural<in dire straits>
(from Merriam-Webster)
I went to a brilliant talk by Piero Zanini on the geographical/cultural/anthropoligical meaning of the Strait in Dunkerque yesterday.
I didn’t understand it all but this is what I got from it!
Zanini talked about the Indispensable Strait, which is the name of an actual waterway, but he was also talking about how we need the figure of the strait as metaphor (from Greek meaning carry across and in modern-day Greece buses might have metaphora embossed on their sides), explorers of North America looked for a strait that wasn’t there, convinced that it had to be there: a strait is something that makes the other side seem far away, despite being near; crossing it requires rituals; to build the island of Utopia, a strait had to be created (Thomas More); the strait, between two shores, contains immense potential/possibilities; it is a figure of our anxieties …
Straits are passages, you can cross them and also go along them and they have a narrowest point, a chokepoint, a gate …
Matthew 7:13/14 (King James Version):
Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
The opportunity and invitation came out of DAD’s work with Nicolette Picheral and her work “Entre Phare et Shaft/Between Beacon and Shaft”as part of Dunkerque regional capital of culture 2013.
Links:
http://www.parlemot.org/entre-phare-et-shaft.html
http://www.dadonline.eu/node/519
http://www.studio308ltd.co.uk/news/indispensable-s…
