I see, I see 

nature trying to restore itself amidst build-up realities and total destruction. 

I see, I see

one standing,

she witnesses it all 

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Personal conversations about the environment and the rapid enhancement of our climate crises accelerated as we entered the first lockdown on the 18 of March 2020. Suddenly we couldn’t go outside anymore. We couldn't meet anymore, at first not with fellow humans, nor with nature. 

Brussels, normally so vibrant, full of music and social interactions, turned into a ghost town. Nobody on the streets, no cars, just this absurd image of red traffic lights flickering for no one, like the apocalypse had already occurred. 

During one of my many lonely walks, I immersed myself in greenery: flowers blooming, birds singing, bees buzzing. It was such an alienating yet wonderful Springtime wherein a deep feeling of melancholy struck me. On the one hand because nature seemed to slowly restore itself, and I longed for more of this, more of this natural silence, more of this nature's blossoming without humans depleting its resources, airplanes disrupting. And on the other hand realising what we'd had already done to destroy so much we - probably - could never retrieve again.

I wanted 'normal' life to continu, but no longer in the ways offered to me, becoming even more fully aware of the imbalance we bring to our earth by merely existing, consuming so much, a societal modal that doesn't work with but against us and our environment. 

And for what?

And for who? 

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During one of our prolonged talks, Alice and I imagined what the world would look like without us humans in it, coming from the understanding that us humans are destroying the earth and taking, using, way more resources than we need to. That we are putting ourselves above all existence instead of co-existing. At the same time we found ourselves mourning for all that is already lost and feeling relentlessly alone with trying to change anything whilst time is still now, it's due. 

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How would it be, to be a bird, the first or the last bird when there amongst the traces that humans left? What do we leave behind? What remains? These questions led Alice and I to Doel, a true ghost town in Belgium. Doel was almost completely abandoned after demolition plans for extending Antwerp's Port. Up until now the extension didn't take place because inhabitants resisted (there are still a few living in Doel). But very sadly a nuclear plant got build next to the town. 

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This ghost town universe is grimm looking out at dumped plastic, abandoned buildings and the  nuclear power plant. But then you can also heard the birds and nature taking over.

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