In the Transit Zone

During my crossing of the Ténéré Desert,
Whose name means something like
“Desert of all Deserts,”
I experienced the endless void
As a timeless space
In which standstill would be deadly.

As an artist I know the danger zone
When one leaves one’s base
To venture into “terra incognita.”
TRANSIT is the name of this zone.”

Heinz Mack (Pergamon Museum, Berlin exhibition of his work called “Transit,” October 2006)

It’s interesting that not only artists venture into this zone of transit, but this is something that all travelers experience.

Mack makes another point: “standstill is deadly.” By not traveling, not moving – are we not standing still? This afternoon I returned from a trip to Berlin and experienced first hand the need for travel to get a perspective on the country where one lives. It seems like I am already traveling a lot, and that my stay in Moscow is a voyage in itself to which I can compare life in the United States. But having stayed in Moscow for 3 weeks I am already accustomed to it and blind to some unique to the city ways in which its residents behave. Humans are incredibly adaptable!

It took this short trip to Berlin for me to notice the Moscow rush.. People always going somewhere, pushing, running – why is everyone in such a hurry? Why is there a constant feeling of restlessness and of fatigue? Life in Berlin feels peaceful and calm, almost like a little city. I think that by the scale of the city Berlin is a normal metropolis, but Moscow is of an entirely different scale.

The environment “eats you up,” in Ed’s words. I feel like I must conform in order to get things done, but traveling creates seeing. Instead of being taken with the wave of people in metros and on streets I consciously participate in it. For now I participate in it, but I what is better is that I have the choice of changing its course if I see how it is moving. I can start from my internal world, which because of the travel is refreshed

А ДУША ВЕДЬ ЕТО ТОЧНО
ЕЖЕЛИ ОБОЗЖЕНА
СПРАВЕДЛИВИЕ МИЛОСЕРДНИЕ И ПРАВЕДНЕЙ ОНА

Traveling does stir the soul somehow. By misplacing us and existing (for a few days or hours after having traveled) in a transit zone, neither here nor there, where we are able to see both worlds as semi-outsiders and bring a new look at an otherwise often static everyday life.

When a person travels he realizes where life actually takes place. It is only fiction that life occurs in social or public circles where we discuss the weather or debate about this or that government policy. Traveling, we always carry with us our own world and realize that despite our location or environment surrounding us, life continues. Life exists in these personal, deeply intimate spaces. In a constantly changing, unpredictable environment the constancy we have is within ourselves, where we turn our attention.

Such transit zones can also be physical places – not just states of being – like the no-man’s land middle zone between the two walls in Berlin. Interesting how these zones came to be ruled over by life, for example the space between the two Berlin walls, because it was untouched for many years, became excellent habitat for unique trees and flora to grow. Today, Berlin’s urban planners want to maintain the zone as a garden ring.