Where should I go now? Will I find my way? The path splits in three directions. I’m in trouble. A colleague recalls what I once said: doubt has always been the engine of my work.
In the times we live in certainty and facts seem to be the only answer. But art must raise questions, not only on topics, but even on its own becoming and being. I was thinking about this when a woman came by. She had seen a school class walk along the path a couple of days ago. She said it reminded her of some lines from a poem by the Swedish poet Lars Gustafsson(in Swedish at the bottom):
/…/ That is the whole point of being a path. That it has been done
before. Who made the path?
/../ All and none of them. We make it together,
you too make it on a windy day when
it is early or late on the earth:
We write the paths, and the paths remain,
and the paths are wiser than we are,
and know all we wanted to know.
from Ballad of the Paths in Vastmanland by Lars Gustafsson
in Swedish:
/…/ Det är hela meningen med att vara en stig.
Att det har gjorts förut. Vem gjorde stigen?
/…/Alla och ingen. Vi gör den tillsammans,
också du gör den en blåsig dag, när det är tidigt eller sent på jorden:
vi skriver stigarna, och stigarna blir kvar,
och stigarna är klokare än vi, och vet allt det vi ville veta.
ur Balladen om stigarna i Västmanland/Lars Gustafsson