Traveller, there is no path,
The path is made by walking
Antonio Machado
Rivalry, division and inequality can make collaboration difficult, but on a one-to-one level, they can be overcome with a mixture of hard work and patience. However, what can you do when this tricky trio gets scaled up? How can you encourage two halves of a divided city to work together? Last Summer I was introduced to a lovely lady called Vesta Kroese and she has recently finished a project that simply, yet beautifully, considers this problem. In HIER/DAAR she considers the North/South divide in Rotterdam – a split that is economic, political and physical: “de Maas”, the water between them, separates the two halves of the city.
Vesta was originally asked to site a public artwork in North Rotterdam, but she wanted to make something instead about the city as a whole, about its perceived divide and how the Maas might be seen as a common or middle ground, rather than a dividing line. (This is fitting for a practitioner whose work is situated in the mid point between Art and Architecture.)
A man-made point of commonality shared by both sides of the water are the Maastunnel’s two ventilation towers – Vesta realized that these two structures were the only dark spots on Rotterdam’s night skyline, as if to underline the denial of any concrete link whatsoever between the North and South. She installed neon signage at the top of each tower: when one lights up momentarily as “HERE”, the other is always “THERE” and vice versa. To the observer, all parts of the city therefore become both near and far, both familiar and foreign. Inhabitants of either half of Rotterdam are made aware of each other’s proximity and similarity, becoming simultaneously united across the city’s skyline.
The work is a dialogue that is also a call for dialogue: by seeing it, the divided city works together to make both artwork and sentiment come alive… a new path is suggested and there is a glimmer of collaboration.
