Yunya Yin
Jessica, Noemi, Yunya – week 1-4
Jul 2, 2024
week one
Becoming soft
Arriving, sensing, breathing, resting, slowing down, reading, walking, getting to know each other – we, the humans, and we the humans and the house, the garden, the insects, the many views, the bats, the walks to the lake, the woods, green explosions, swimming in the (still cold water), the smell of Jasmin everywhere, the fireflies in the garden…
The FIREFLIES!!!!!!
We’ve been surrounded by a flock of fireflies blinking and sparkling all around us… pure magic.
week two
Being soft
Taking pictures. Writing. More reading. Floating in the water. More sharing. More sharing of our lives and cultural differences (also in food). More sharing about our themes that brought us here… Sleep, rest, comforting, boundaries, boarders.
New themes that emerged since our arrival: nesting the tendency to arrange one’s immediate surroundings, such as a work station, to create a place where one feels secure, comfortable, or in control, roundness, linearity, control vs protection, control as a form of disconnect or inhibiting connection, orbiting, revolving There is a roundness in revolution… in revolve… it makes me think about orbits and the roundness of our planet… all of which is different to linearity. Linearity – which is about the narrowness of being alive – which is about dominating or being dominated. Alexis Pauline Gumbs flowing, cherishing, praise poems, printing, berries from the garden, m-othering, gardening, rain, rain, rain… a storm… acceptance.
Collecting peels.
(We wish for mothers, fathers, teachers, partners, governments who unlearn domination through refusing to dominate their children, partner, students…)
week three
Staying soft
After the storm: Collecting drift wood, drying drift wood, shifting driftwood.
We’ve learnt that the passionfruit flowers are good for sleep.
Dreaming lots, not sleeping well… or sleeping too much. Good sleep is sleep during the night (not too short, not too long) to be productive the next day. Society defines how we should sleep, our bodies the machines that have to function under capitalism. Taking a nap. Resting during the day. Rest is resistance. Theresia Enzensberger & Tricia Hersey
Collecting more peels, cooking and making color, dyeing fabric. Apéro.
Taking portraits of each other. Learning practical skills from each other.
Witches, women, care work, fabric… watching Switzerland win on a soft linen cloth. Waiting for a storm that never arrives, watching it from the distance.
Peeling off the layers of a polaroid. Menstruation cycles.
Swimming in the now warmer water, relaxation, tiredness, sleep…
Cradling driftwood.
week four
Leaving soft(er)
Collecting thoughts, more driftwood from the storm, more berries and stinging nettle for dyeing, writing, cutting grass, cleaning, washing, coming to an end.
We’ve found connection… connection to each other, the connection between the lake and us, the connection between the wood and us, the connection between old houses and us etc. We’ve lived with the air, the flowers, the rivers, the thunderstorms and lightnings, the fireflies, bees and the bumblebees and their stings, the nettles and their burns, the June beetles (that come out exactly at 21.05h and disappear again at 21.27h), the ants and the swallows. We tried to observe carefully, to touch, smell and listen. It’s their surroundings, that we’ve been sharing for the past 3 weeks. It’s been the simple things around us that have brought us such vivid experiences and deep feelings…
thank you!
