Rue de Soignies, Bruxelles
This text was written during the last days of my first arboreal experience, in Brussels in May 2019. It was first read in June 2019 at KABK, the school where I study in The Hague. Forced to limit myself to a twenty-minute format, I had to skip anything anecdotal in order to get to the essential.
I spent one month in the tree on the rue de Soignies. Initially, just an abstract idea. To stay in a tree. To im-plant. To stop running. A nostalgic impulse: to climb trees. A primitive joy. Breathe.
To be present. Available, for meetings, exchanges. Over time, with the local residents, with the tree, with myself. Become a static force, place of focus and gathering. The tree as mentor.
Like the Baron, a refusal, to stay where I am expected, to grow up according to rules that are imposed on me. It all starts from a crisis. Globalisation, normalisation, consumerism, the cult of money, productivity and work, family, social and cultural pressure: all this far from me, for a moment.
Like Thoreau and his cabin, a healthy distance from society. A hermitage to approach reality not by knowledge systems or metaphysical constructions but simply by a vicinity. An offset attitude, while playing with this paradox: I’m here, right nearby. Privileged.
Also inspired by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, to fight for an idea, a poetic image, however futile and fleeting it may be. By Francis Alÿs, to build a mode of existence that is not imposed by modernity or globalisation; to introduce a fable into the local history of a place. By Tino Sehgal, to refuse the fetishism of the object, choose oral transmission. By Tehching Hsieh, explore time in a different way. Spend time. To live.
Choose my prison. In the street, public space, normative space, but also a place of discussion, questioning, sharing, construction and deconstruction. Between prison and agora. The tree: interface between earth and sky, my character, a symbolic messenger, drawing from his branch the map of human perspectives projected upwards as if in a planetarium.
My first attempts: here and there, a small climb, a few encounters. Oak, fir, ash, chestnut. Literary claims, preliminary excitement. I have to find the right tree.
And then, my arrival in the neighborhood, by chance. The first look: wow, it’s big! I am intimidated by his presence, but also attracted at the same time. The first contact: just a caress, not yet knowing how to go about it, how to approach it; and there I stand, looking at it.
Then, the first leg up, the children’s laughter on the balcony. The passers-by. I greet the grocer’s wife on his phone, she’s in Pakistan. Smiles. Encouragements.
The tree. Its emaciated branches that do not reveal the ceiling of leaves that will hide me from the sun and shelter me from the rain throughout the month of May. The branch, where I feel good. Its extension where I can stretch my legs. Close to the street, but perched: the ideal position. First hours, present.
The neighborhood. A clumsy urban layout, a public space that is biscornu, bizarre, lively. Interactions, crossovers. A working class district, in the city center, a few steps from the tourists. The tree, placed on a border. Interstice. Around it, new buildings, new arrivals. The two social housing towers, a few meters from the tree, whose future is uncertain. Anxiety and apprehension, affective charge. The history of the neighborhood.
And quickly, very quickly, disciplinary power: I am taken down from my tree. It is forbidden. Privilege, again. My mother knows someone, I know someone. A few phone calls. The right contact, the right formula, a file to build: I am in easy territory, the procedure is launched. We are at the beginning of March.
Difficulties nonetheless. Obligations, commitments that deviate, take me away from my goal: it’s not that easy to sit in a tree. Concerns of the body. The cold. The pains. I decide on a time frame: two weeks, at the beginning of May.
Enters Brussels’ administrative hydra. I dive into the interconnected operation of entities such as the police, the green spaces, event and culture departments, the college of city councillors, the mayor’s office… The bureaucratic apparatus of the city suddenly reveals its true face: a set of human beings, sensitive singularities claiming to be a whole to apply the strict rules of the city in an absurd, almost baroque ballet. In the middle of all this: a guy who wants to climb a tree. Alliance games, support and reluctance. Politics. I use my charms, adapt myself to the language of my interlocutors. I slip into a gap.
The date I had set is approaching. My administrative quest is still hazy. Delays, conflicting informations. Stress. Caught up in other things, I let it drag on. And then it’s tomorrow: still no authorization. We’ll see: adventure is what I wanted.
On the morning of Monday, April 29th, I wake up tired. The weather is not as mild as I thought it would be, I’m a little sick. I would give up. And then I arrive in front of the tree. I climb up. It has come back to life since last time and has covered itself with foliage. I’m glad to see him again. However, he is not the only one that has changed: the neighborhood has also undergone some transformations. I pull out my notebook and start writing.
9h50 a.m.
Finally, here I am at the top of my tree. Invisible from the high branches, I observe the street below. Once again, I am forced to work in the shadows.
10h02 a.m.
The construction work that started right next door predicts two weeks of continuous noise. The leaves that protect me from the gaze of the law also cut me off from the relationship with the street that I so much appreciated. Large, half-opened garbage dumpsters just below the tree finish drawing the disappointing scenery I am facing. At the same time, it feels good to be back. Patience, let’s see how things go.
10h34 a.m.
It’s cold, my legs hurt, I feel like a spy.
The first few hours are difficult. I am afraid of being expelled and that my project will end before it has even begun. The noise of the bulldozers and the parade of trucks from the construction site, the presence of a GSM antenna a few meters above my head, humidity and the very relative ergonomics of my seating: all this makes me doubt the fact that I can leave unscathed by a prolonged presence. I’m considering relocating to a forest. Escape.
Gradually, I come back to my senses. I am taming my new living space: my universe stops with my field of vision. I also curl up on my body, on my primary needs: hunger, thirst, cold, safety.
Trust comes back. I’m bored: that’s a good sign. I remember why I’m here: simply, to be here. Rare sentiment, I feel focused and determined. Paradoxically, free: confined certainly, in my vegetal jail, but from a choice that is specific to me. The illusion of mastering my existence, of detaching myself a little from society and its norms. Escape, again. Refuge.
Tuesday, May 7th, 10:42 a.m.
Actually, this is the first time in my life that I get up every morning to work on something that makes sense to me; and even if I take my time, that I do it at my own pace, there is something going on.
Comfort. My equipment gets richer over time, mainly gleaned at random or offered by my few accomplices: cushions, blanket, rope, umbrella, a chair for the guests. It’s life: meals, storms, birds singing. Habits are taking hold. Routines. The visits. And the rest of the time: to be there.
Tuesday, April 30th, 11:42 a.m.
The routine sets in. Despite the painful omnipresence of the construction works, I am getting used to the idea of being stuck here. I move around the tree according to my whims.
My presence in the neighborhood is revealing itself gently, organically. Word of mouth. I am asked questions: I remain vague, give different answers. Blur the tracks. The children want to know how I climb the tree: I tell a whole bunch of stories that are scattered, distorted and amplified. Sometimes I hear these stories coming back to the foot of the tree, transformed. Curiously also, I am not recognized as soon as I get down to earth: as if the tree was my superhero costume.
A funny character. I receive a whole series of nicknames: Robin Hood, of course, but also Tarzan, Spiderman, the artist, the philosopher, the poet, the bird, the raven (from the fable), the alien, the hide-and-seeker. I let myself go into funky costumes, more and more colorful as I allow myself to be seen. I give less importance to the finesse of my outfits. Discards myself from some of the superficial concerns of my earthly existence. Freedooooom.
One wonders what I’m doing here. If I play a double game. If I sleep in the tree. Around the football field on the other side of the towers, rumors spread. I feed the mystery. Fantasies. Facing my presence, some are moved. Others disturbed. Worried. Touched. Dreamy. Everyone arrive with their own eyes on me, the visitor, the intruder. Anyway, a strange bird. And precisely this opportunity: to be the new actor. A role to be built. Outside the boxes.
Sometimes I would like to remove my face: not only male but also very white, same color as the surveillance camera on the opposite wall with whom I share an overhanging, dominating position. Image of the oppressor. Some try to guess: bourgeois or not bourgeois? I’m talking about theater, that’s not a good sign. I am gauged on the brand of my phone, asked what’s in my bag. Fortunately, my ridiculous outfits and a few traces of adolescent street-cred once again blur my tracks. Sometimes, the distance from my branch allows me to keep the conversation in a laughing tone, where I would probably have had more trouble if we were face-to-face. Confidence.
And then people get used to me. My status evolves: from potential cop, pervert, burglar, vagabond or simple weirdo, I become a loyal member of the neighborhood, a street mate, a confidant. My lack of recording device or institutional label give me an approachable air. Simply, available.
The street. This little piece of street. Very quickly, one observation: a male territory. Among children, I talk all day with boys, but will have to wait for two weeks before being approached by girls. It’s the same for adults. Sometimes mothers are afraid: one of them yells at me while I’ve taken a little trip to the heights. Stress shot. I put a word on the tree that vaguely reveals my intentions and reassures on my ability not to fall from the tree.
Friday, May 3rd 1:15 p.m.
The garbage men have just passed by, leaving the five dumpsters from the tower empty. The street is really a predominantly male dominated space: workers, sweepers, garbage collectors, police officers, homeless people, shopkeepers, technicians, boys playing football: men occupy the space while women only pass through.
Same day, 2:55 p.m.
A man peed just below my tree, in the gutter.
Daytime. Apart from street workers, territory of children, elders. Adults are at work, it is an opportunity to meet the others, the fragiles, the neglected. Robin Hood, interlocutor of the weak. I am told about the living conditions in the tower, which has not been renovated since it was built in 1958. Single glazing, promiscuity, bugs. It will be demolished in two years: among those who lived in the neighboring tower, currently being renovated, some were rehoused to even harsher conditions. People denounce the social housing system. The word ghetto is pronounced.
I observe the patriarchal values of the elderly. The incipient homophobia among children, the central place of racism in their psyche and in the discourse of the elders. Sexism. The upcoming elections are also giving way to heated political debates around the tree: antisemitism and hate speech are intertwined with concerns about taxes and immigration. I observe the fear of the police, of exclusion. Several generations of pain and oppression feeling, the traces of colonialism, anchored. I also observe those who do not speak, whose bodies are discreet, invisible. And only guess the ones I don’t see.
Besides that: joy. The games with the children. The jokes of the teenagers, who share their dreams and hopes with me. The support of the elders, their gestures when they don’t speak French. The regulars, who come to see me every day. Perched stories, memories, horizons. And all those, curious to know what will happen next: I promise to display news on the tree. Quickly, the desire to do something here: I meet with local associations, the community centre. To be continued.
Transformations. My body gets used to my new environment, exerts resistance too. The construction works wear me out, I’m seen climbing with my anti-noise helmet. Barefoot when the weather is nice again. My back hurts.
Monday, April 29th 3.30 p.m.
I have the impression that I can better feel my surroundings: the orientation of the wind, the temperature variations.
My mind is also evolving: I feel calmer. The physical distance that separates me from the ground also serves as a rampart: my stress, that of social pressure, evaporates when I am in the air. Progressively, my complicity with the tree, our natural connection. My friends the birds. And at the end of my day, that funny feeling when I return to society and reintegrate myself into the flow.
Sunday, May 5th, 6:55 p.m.
Strange feeling to be back in the subway. People are alone, they seem closed to me, cold. Malaise. At the Gare du Midi a man activates the alarm on the gates to get out of the station, and I realize that these gates and their alarm are not there to prevent the circulation of the less privileged, but simply to accentuate their discomfort, to make their world a little more strident and distressing. Alienation.
The last few days. Apprehension. This text that I have to write and disturbs my concentration, the purity of my presence: once again, production logic, I think about the deadline, the follow-ups. All this weakens my attention: somehow I’m already gone. Escaping. Tired, I reduce my hours. I can’t get away.
Sunday, May 19th 3:33 p.m.
I’m anticipating the end of this period of work: I suddenly realize how much I am attached to the tree. I want to give him a hug.
The end. A success: simply, my presence. That the kids observed someone stay in a tree for a month doing nothing, the questions they asked themselves: a self-sufficient achievement. The importance for me that there is no name: a rumor more than a project. The beginning of a journey.
Friday, May 24th 1:25 p.m.
Two boys look at me, and one of them asks me, “What are you doing here? » Before I can answer, his friend pulls him toward him and says to me: “Don’t worry, I’ll explain!”
Conclusion. I arrived there, naive, with my illusions, my clumsiness. Humbly, I hope. What do I get out of it? Stories, a lot. Some leads. Responsibilities too. A conviction, consolidated: that the de-colonization and de-patriarchization of our societies are the major challenges to the questioning of capitalism. A desire: to put my experience of reality in perspective with the knowledge I build and deconstruct for myself.
For Aristotle, being part of the public sphere means having time to worry about the problems of society. This therefore only concerns the wealthiest citizens, those who do not have to work for their survival. Today, I am aware of my privilege to be able to step back and try to understand, to grasp the world as a whole in order to dream of other forms of society, of living together. Despite the almost indecent nature of my proposal, taunting by my passive attitude those who have no choice but to act to maintain their livelihoods, I feel that I must occupy this place. Because I can’t give it to someone else and so it’s important that I take it on. And the fact that I am so white, so male and so well-off only underlines the persistence of the most obvious systemic inequalities.
In antiquity, Athenian democracy was based on the military authority of the city, slave labour and the political exclusion of women. Today, the system in which we operate has not evolved so much in view of control mechanisms, post-colonial policies or the lack of value given to matrimonial work. In the face of these contemporary problems, in a public space so firmly rooted in exclusion, what can be my role to give a place to the perspective of the most disadvantaged, of those precisely excluded from the public sphere? In the midst of the crisis of the democratic model, how can we experiment with new forms of community? Finally, what place is there for an internationalist reasoning in a neoliberal world?
These questions lead me to an ethical problem: why is it acceptable to slow down? It is partly because I indulge myself in contemplation that I arrive at these necessary conclusions, prerequisite for any reflection turned towards change. So, I will continue to climb my tree, and will visit others. I will come back, differently, better prepared. Deck chairs for my passing guests. A daily meeting at the foot of the tree. And continue to do things at my own pace, calmly.