One more trip to visit the pines on Örö, by a lucky coincidence, in November as my first visit to the island last year. These ten days I have payed my respects to my old friends, the pines I began performing with in January this year, see here. First of all I recorded my last talk with the pine on the shore (see image above, and the video with the text spoken in Swedish, here) and I also visited the pine next door, daily (see image below).
Moreover, I encountered two more pines, both on the eastern shore, and recorded brief moments together with them, The Pine by the Beach and The Pine on the Beach, both available here.
Besides these exercises with pines that I always indulge in while visiting the island, I brought with me my old action camera and made some experiments with walking along the Pitkä ikävä road that traverses the island from north to south. These experiments are not really about meetings with trees, but rather about ways of performing landscape, something I tried for the first time in the manmade pinewoods in Nida on the Curonian Spit in 2017, see Walking in Nida. The practice is even less predictable than working with a camera on tripod, because walking with the camera on my forehead I cannot see the image and have no real control of its position. As a complement and contrast to working with pines this walking exercise has been both refreshing and exhausting. I will return to the pines, of course, perhaps some other ones, however, because the pine on the shore that I have been talking with and the pine next door that I have been “holding hands” with were both relationships planned to last only one year. I guess I will return to say hello, however, as soon as I have a chance, because this island has now become an important part of my life.
Meetings with Remarkable and Unremarkable Trees 