Imagining Malmö

Landskrona

Yesterday was a day of adventure; a friend and me travelled to Landskrona, a city close to the sea between the two large cities Malmö and Helsingborg. The city is quite old, and therefore has a lot of beautiful buildings and history. Everywhere in the small town there are traces of a grand time with castles and fortresses. We have studied architecture for two years now and a certain building has popped up time to time; the Townhouse. A small and modern house built in between small picturesque townhouses. The building has been equally criticised and praised, the discussion about breaking norms always get brought up when modern buildings get built next to or in the area of old ones.

-Michel de Certeau, Walking in the City 

I paired up two very different sketches to decipher this quote. The first is of the pier where the titanic is, filled with tourists when the weather was nice last week. Travelers from all over the place gathered for the experience, the vacation, because that’s what people do when they go somewhere new. The second sketch is of the toxic lot that the immigrants have settled on. I did not sketch their living situation, as I felt it to be a bit rude, intrusive, disrespectful, or something.. I instead sketched the vacant area beyond their residence, where a skatepark used to be, but is now overgrown with weeds, filled with trash and decorated with graffiti. As I sketched the area, I saw not one person. The contrast of these two photos perceive how many people are driven by the desire to see the city for all its tourist attractions rather than the desire to improve its fallen parts (toxic land, the overbearing population of poor immigrants, etc.).

(So I apparently saved this as a draft instead of posting it weeks ago? Forgive me, I’m an inexperienced blogger.)

Every time I go somewhere new my mom gets angry at me for returning with no pictures to show her. But I just cannot do it. I cannot fathom the idea of seeing my reality framed through a camera lens when the view is all around me. I don’t want to be constrained to a frame when life is happening 360. I’m afraid to miss out, and I’m not worried about not remembering because I know everyone else around me is taking pictures that will be up for the public to see at any time. I keep a journal with me of any interesting events that occur or thoughts that I have, and I feel so safe with it because it is tangible. I can touch it and keep it safe. But on the internet these pictures and words are out of my control. Who knows what could happen to them. I will write in my journal and I will sketch in my sketchbook, but I will not trust that the words I write and the pictures I see will always remain. And I believe that a sketch will show more emotion than any photograph on the internet. I will try to post sketches, but no promises - sometimes I am too excited and overwhelmed to sit down and draw.

‘Loss of the Creature’ touches on this idea. Talking about those who waive their “right of seeing and knowing” by instead documenting with their cameras, Percy writes  - “For him there is no present, there is only the past of what has been formulated and seen and the future of what has been formulated and not seen. The present is surrendered to the past and the future.”

If I learned anything in Croatia, it was how to be present. There were very few places with wifi, so it forced the group to really take in each place we visited, every detail of a place and the personal reactions and emotions we all felt. I never knew having no wifi could feel so good. It’s liberating, really. I was no longer hidden behind the small screen of my phone, but exposed to the enormous world surrounding me. This past experience has already shaped my experience in Malmö, because I will be rid of my phone and other technologies while viewing a land I have not yet seen. 

Paris

Swedish Tomato

Growing tomatoes and bananas in cold countries didn’t seem possible a while ago. Now ideas which are inspired by the localism teach us to only buy products produced nearby. But is this really sustainable? To plant gardens for recreation, yes. It is good to have the knowledge of course. But what happens if this philosophy drive us out of balance, when localism becomes the driving force of the most consumers?

Growing a tomato or whatever plant which needs more warmth and sun takes a lot more effort to produce in cold countries and it tastes ugly (sorry). The consumer is left with no choice but to pay expensive amounts of money to get a bad product. In locally based economy we don’t need others any more. And we don’t care about them. In the locally focused economy warm countries start to abandon growing fruits and vegetables, because other countries don’t buy any more. They start to develop industries and destroy their environments to be able to catch up with others. So they too don’t need the technology of other countries any more (or do they?!).

In US I’m pretty sure they don’t try to make grape-growing production industry in Alaska. Alaska people maybe are good at something else instead and they exchange with California grapes or wine. In Europe the countries are relatively smaller (think US states) and they don’t dare to say a production in the neighbor country is local. We try to produce the whole world in our backyard when instead we should focusing on what we are good at. And sustainable transportation. I believe in the comparative advantages and I don’t want to stay in my backyard all my life. I like to travel and see how other people live and think and maybe learn something myself.