ISSUE #8 – 2012 STRICTLY UNEDITED JOURNAL

#8
ISSUE #8 – 2012 STRICTLY UNEDITED JOURNAL ON THE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF NATURE IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT
CLUB
DONNY
ROOMS
SANNEKE VAN HASSEL
And those first leaves, so thin; they unfolded
in April. Then came the aphids, their sticky
juice making my father curse. In the evening he
propped his bike against the tree and when he left
for the factory next morning his saddle was sticky.
Light-green shiny leaves. My mother opened the
windows. Linden scent was blown into the room.
From my small bed I could just see the branches.
Where I live now I lie in bed for hours. My whole
life passes by. Father, mother, our house, Dirk; I
bring them together, put them in my room. How
quiet they are now they’re no longer around. Little
things: tray, dram, snack. Dirk talks about crystal
clarity, about a soberness that would do humanity
a great deal of good. As twilight falls I fill the
glasses.
And at night when the lamps came on, that lime
green against the dark sky. The house was always
dark, at night and in daytime, rooms, furniture,
solid dark brown. I could play hide-and-seek all
over the place. High summer, mollifying sweet
scent of the linden tree pushing against the
window, pushing to get in, to fill rooms. In August
the little wings fell onto the path. My mother
gathered them to make tea. Linden blossom for
when I couldn’t sleep. She’d forgotten to pick
them. Eventually she would forget everything.
Linden for the memory. Or a window.
Where I live now the windows don’t open.
That’s because they’re afraid we’ll jump. They’re
happiest if we sit in our chairs all day. I’m very
good at that, fortunately. I think: good that Dirk’s
no longer around to see this. He was quick to feel
hemmed in. Threw out the furniture. His parents’
cabinet. My grandfather’s chair. I turned and
looked outside while he knocked through walls,
made a folding table, almost Rietveld, or not quite.
To me a house is walls, corridors and rooms you
can hide in. Plus one window, for the light, the air.
But he gave me walls of glass. Light that came
from above. ‘Everyone can see us,’ I said. ‘Only
the birds,’ said Dirk. ‘And you can always get
rid of the house, leave.’ But a linden tree would
never do that; it can live for five hundred years,
solidly rooted. ‘Little bird, I have heard, what
a merry song you sing,’ father hummed as he
weeded blades of grass from the gravel drive. You
never know who’s watching you. I wanted to keep
things for myself. That can be difficult here. Every
week they go through my cupboards. ‘Thank you,’
I say. If you’re not nice they’re gone in no time
and then the day is long. ‘Hello my dear,’ when
they bring me my coffee. ‘Thank you.’ The world
is behind my back. I pretend to be knitting. They
like to see you keeping busy. I pour drinks for my
family. ‘Would you like another coffee madam?’
‘We’ve just started on the drink,’ I say. ‘Doesn’t
matter a bit, madam.’
How we’ve been living in the dark for centuries,
Dirk said. How he was going to make a change.
Modern, bright, clear. He painted the walls so
white you couldn’t see anything any longer. I
looked out of the window, at the dark tree trunks.
If I twist a stick, air comes in through the holes in a
grid at the top of the window. Doesn’t matter a bit
if I forget, not a bit; where I live now there comes
air from a hole in the ceiling too. Downstairs they
keep chickens. They’re in a little coop. Next to it
are sycamore trees with scaly bark. In winter you
have to prune them.
CLUB DONNY #8 2012 > 03
DEATH IN
MUNICH
JOB FLORIS
15:18h
The layout is clear: a field with a basic structure
of long straight paths, narrow at the entrance,
fanning out into a terrain with increasingly wide
plots between the paths. At its widest point this
trapezium turns into a semicircle, the paths follow
the curve, thus enclosing the terrain. A narrow
crossing forms the point of contact with the
adjacent terrain. This is a square that is slightly
tilted in relation to the rounded trapezium and it
also has a rectilinear pattern of paths. The slight
tilt breaks the symmetrical harness, anticipates the
geography of the ground and follows the curve of
the stream that borders the south-east edge of the
terrain. On this topographic map, the distances are
difficult to estimate and no buildings are shown.
15:26h
Any tourist even slightly interested in architecture
draws up a wish-list of buildings, interiors,
ensembles and other canonical places to visit.
The contradiction is that the list is usually just as
long as the time is limited. Some of these kinds
of places hardly lend themselves to a speeddate, so they generally remain brief encounters.
The familiar opinion from publications is visited
and re-established together with a few extra
opinions, thus the lens keeps the building at a
suitable distance. This efficient approach does not
allow one to become imbued with the tone and
atmosphere of the place.
15:33h
Three Indians appear from behind the bushes on
the left. Small in stature, it’s true, but the surprise
is no less for it. They proceed along their path
purposefully, take no notice of my presence and,
warily and without a sound, they disappear in the
low vegetation. On this sunny afternoon a gentle
breeze causes the rustling of the leaves to mingle
with the sounds of the city. Every bench appears
to be occupied by parents with prams, people
reading newspapers and whispering couples
seeking repose. The air and the green seem more
intense here. People are picnicking in the tall grass
beside the paths.
15:45h
Döllgast remains well-hidden here; a long,
thorough search lies ahead of me, combined with
the agony of doubting whether I’m in the right
place. The relatively unknown architect Hans
Döllgast undertook the emotionally charged task
04 < CLUB DONNY #8 2012
of renovating several structures that emerged
damaged from the Second World War, mostly
institutional buildings, including the Alte
Pinakotek. Shortly after the Second World War,
the reflex was mainly to erase and forget; the path
of least resistance. In Döllgast’s renovations, the
traces of destruction – and thus the memory of the
crimes of the Nazi era – are retained for as long
as possible.
16:37h
The classical influences on the design are
unmistakable. A bit further along, in an open
area among the low vegetation, a naked body
lies nonchalantly in the sun. A replica of a fallen
siren? The distinction between aged marble and
bones becomes blurred eventually. The white
wire that appears from the head reveals music
and circulation. A pizza courier races past on
a mountain bike, a strange acceleration in this
15:57h
tranquil world, which apparently also serves as a
There are no identifying signs. The wild groves shortcut.
often narrow the ample gravel pathways to
overgrown corridors, as if nobody here is willing 16:46h
to support the straight path by pruning every now As arch rivals, Leo von Klenze and Friedrich
and then. Ragged old trees with low-hanging von Gärtner must have competed in the design of
branches capture the sunlight and thus block their own tombs. Even here, the two Baumeisters
every view. It is impossible to visually decide a attached to the Court of Ludwig I apparently
destination and move through this lush terrain in wanted to outdo each other. This time in sobriety
a directed manner. There’s nothing for it but to and restraint: no Hellenistic scenes, no immense
roam around in search. No punishment, with this Valhalla or Befreiungshalle, as a sort of postweather, but it is inefficient: this terrain dictates an edit of their own position and influence that puts
ever-slower search.
everything in a more modest perspective. Von
Gärtner made a redesign for this terrain in Italian
16:16h
style, and would later be laid to rest here himself.
Series of silhouettes stand in apparently random
arrangement. Dead stones overrun by living 17:12h
foliage. These structures must have once been The gate squeaks shut, just after the bell tolls,
strictly ordered, before being pushed agonizingly precisely when the sought-after structures
slowly out of their alignment by roots and come into view in the distance. The pilgrimage
branches. Thus, a wonderful scale model of a appears to be complete; all of Döllgast’s subtle
deserted city has been created, a forest full of slopes can finally be studied and fathomed. Not
fantastic structures eroded by Chronos, sometimes an anticlimax, but of such minor relevance in
adorned with ridiculous sculptures, sometimes this untamed environment. An open space offers
sober due to the levelling effect of the overgrown sunshine. A soft, mossy mattress beckons. As I lie
down the ground enfolds and embraces me.
moss and foliage.
16:21h
The map of the terrain may not have shown any
complicated junctions, but reality proves to be
more unruly, once you’re on your way, logic
comes under pressure. It gradually becomes
apparent that one aspect is completely omitted
from the flat, cartographic representation. The
overgrowth creates spaces that are far more
complex and more richly diverse than in the most
ornate Baroque churches. The trees and plants’
own logic competes with the logic of the terrain’s
design, dominates and forms an impressive system
of diverse, non-designed spaces. Colourful and
varied. Monumental and dark. Intimate and high.
Low and distant. Lost in the forest, with no white
rabbit to follow.
18:15h
Places such as these were only built outside the
city walls around the turn of the century, for
reasons of hygiene, a break with the tradition
of using the grounds of a church. The Alter
Südfriedhof has now been swallowed up by the
city. It is situated in its heart and functions as a
green enclave: a municipal park where no icecream is sold, no music can be heard and no
barbeques are held. All things contemporary seem
to have been left outside the walled entrance. This
Arcadian landscape constitutes an anachronism
in the dynamic and ever-expanding urbanism,
even the sounds from the bustling city are muffled
to distant echoes here.
WHAT TO DO
WITH ALL THIS NATURE?
ZOË GRAY
After living for six years in Charlois, one of
Rotterdam’s more insalubrious neighbourhoods,
in a street where the inhabitants’ passion for music
is such that they share their choice of tunes with
all their neighbours; and above a garage whose
reviving engines and shouting customers start like
clockwork at 9am six days a week, a Christmas
retreat to the French countryside seemed like a
wise idea. Armed with a newly bought sat-nav
(a.k.a. marital saviour), off we set for a fortnight
of calm, two weeks which the French describe as
quinze jours, somehow squeezing in one more day
than the rest of us.
On our first night in our rural getaway – an ancient
stone farmhouse – the silence was, as the saying
goes, deafening. Waking in the middle of the
night, I feared I had gone blind, but then realized
that the shutters were simply shut, keeping out
the sliver of moonlight and the haze of the milky
way, rather than the usual flood of the streetlamps
sodium glow. I was then driven to distraction by an
incessant scratching sound – surely a rabid mouse
trying to claw its way into the bedroom – I finally
realized that it was the sound of my eyelashes on
the pillow, tsh tsh, tsh tsh.
By day three, when enough wood had been
chopped to keep us warm, and wellington boots
had been purchased from the hypermarché –
appropriately called at this time of year, when all
shoppers appear hyper, if not mentally deranged –
it was the moment to take a huge leap for mankind.
Yes, it was time for a walk.
Now, in Rotterdam Zuid, the options for bucolic
wanderings are limited, and the best bet is the
newly joined up Zuiderpark, which cleverly
links previously disparate parkjes into one huge
swathe of green, of which the city planners are
very proud. This green smile on the Rotterdam
map has footpaths, cycle-paths (perhaps the
occasional psychopath lurking amidst the trees)
and playgrounds for children interspersed at
regular intervals. It even has, in some special
spots, exercise equipment for the health-conscious
amongst the city’s inhabitants, placed at carefully
chosen locations where you can crunch your abs
while admiring ducks navigating a zebra crossing,
or herons nesting under the elevated Slinge metro.
The whole landscape is landscaped to explain how
it should be used, like a miniature version of the
Netherlands, complete with gezellig allotment
gardens and designated barbeque areas. There
can be no doubt about what one is supposed to do
there, which makes rebellion easy.
But what of the French countryside, where the
rules are less obvious, if not downright invisible
to an outsider? For a start, no countryside dweller
in their right mind would go for a walk simply for
the sake of it. You won’t catch a paysan tiptoeing
through the pansies for pleasure. No French farmer
would go for a stroll unless it was with the express
purpose of collecting truffles or mushrooms, or
unless he was wearing an orange fluo jacket and
had a shotgun tucked under his arm, which clearly
shifts the activity from strolling to hunting and
gathering. Countryside people don’t need to go for
walks, because they are out and about in nature
all the time. It is their livelihood, their property,
as invisible to them as water is to a fish. For the
city-dweller such as myself, however, nature is an
aesthetic and sensory experience, something to be
exclaimed over, painted, photographed, captured
in some way or another. For me, a walk is the
medium for this interaction with nature. I expect
it to clear the mind, exercise the body, and refresh
the soul, which is quite a lot to ask from a stumble
through the mud.
Faced with no limitations beyond the stamina of
our legs, the warmth of our coats and the time until
supper, we set off. Hands tucked in pockets or –
in my favourite pose – clasped behind the back,
we four dislocated urban flaneurs stomped off
with a host of expectations of our walk. Fuelled
by advertising images of the fresh wholesome fun
that the countryside represents, and nourished by
landscape painting that presents the countryside
as an ordered, two-dimensional scene for our
personal contemplation, we thought we knew
what we were doing. But we were wrong. As
often with such forays off the beaten track, I
realized there was a mismatch of expectations. A
la campagne, my ignorance floors me – I don’t
know what ‘make’ the trees are, I can’t tell a
poisonous fungus from a delicious mushroom, nor
distinguish between the buzz of a buzzard from
the warble of a warbler.
To further befuddle me, I discovered that footpaths
are somewhat of a rarity in rural France, unless
you want to embark upon one of the pilgrim trails
all the way to Santiago de Compostela, scallop
shell in hand. For more modest ramblers, such
as ourselves, this left two options: staying on
the roads, or trespassing. The former was clearly
too easy; the feel of tarmac beneath the feet too
urban, the route too obvious to follow. The latter
was more tempting, but called for nerves of steel,
especially as it was hunting season. This meant
that we had to do our darndest to make sure that
of us could be mistaken for wild boar by a triggerhappy hunter after a skinfull (or six). By the time
we had skirted our first copse, and picked our way
along the edge of the first ploughed field – the
weight of the mud pulling down our boots – the
local toms-toms were in full swing, and all the
local dogs and their owners knew that interlopers
have been spotted in their fields.
This is another anomaly of the countryside:
contrary to the Zuiderpark on a sunny Sunday,
the countryside appears empty, abandoned by
all human activity, left under the watch of a few
sleepy cows. While you could probably rollerblade topless around Ahoy without raising more
than an eyebrow, in the countryside your slightest
action will be noted by your neighbours, and
their neighbours, and their neighbours, until your
afternoon’s ambling is the talk of the not-quitetown. In a manner reminiscent of Asterix and
Obelix, those most intrepid of Gauls, the locals
will shrug their shoulders in inimitable Gallic
style and tap their heads – tok tok tok – as if to
confirm that your behaviour has merely confirmed
their belief in the madness of city folk.
In Jane Austen’s world, the wilderness is
something to be kept at bay, to be walled out.
Whenever the heroine strays from the footpath or
dares to go beyond the grounds of the park into
the wild woods, you know that trouble is ahead
and that her moral compass is a little wonky. The
landscape gardeners of Austin’s epoch – men
such as the suitably monikered Capability Brown
– would probably have approved of the layout
of the Zuiderpark, with its carefully allocated
zones, although their own designs catered not
to ‘the masses’ but to their wealthy patrons and
the genteel tourists who visited their manicured
parks and gardens. These thoughts were rambling
idly through my mind, as I ambled idly through
the countryside, wondering whether one might
call my current surroundings ‘natural’. After all,
the French landscape is as controlled, monitored,
adapted and – in a way – as manufactured as
the polder landscape of the Netherlands, or
its city version, the urban park. Centuries of
farming, with its shifting beliefs, patterns and
technology have structured the countryside,
with occasional outside intervention (whether
in the form of medieval invasions, the German
occupation during WWII, or – more recently –
rules dispatched from Brussels). Is it simply that
the rate of change is generally so slow as to be
measured in generations? Is that what makes
nature seem natural?
Examining my surroundings from this more
historical perspective, I felt more at ease. Even if
I did not understand the codes for behaviour, or
know exactly whose fields I had just traversed, or
which grasses I now had stuck to my wellies, I
realized that I could decode and understand this
nature in the same way that I can read a park,
or a city. Mankind’s impact on the planet is so
extensive that the layering of man-made activity
can be explored by the light of the stars or by the
floodlights of the harbour.
CLUB DONNY #8 2012 > 05
BOMARZO
SECRET GARDEN
FROM THE MASONS POINT
OF VIEW, THE GARDEN OF
BOMARZO ALSO NAMED
PARK OF THE MONSTERS
(PARCO DEI MOSTRI IN
ITALIAN-LANGUAGE), IS A
RENAISSANCE MONUMENTAL
COMPLEX LOCATED IN
BOMARZO, IN THE PROVINCE
OF VITERBO, IN NORTHERN
LAZIO, ITALY. THE GARDENS
WERE CREATED DURING THE
16TH CENTURY. THEY ARE
COMPOSED OF A WOODED
PARK, LOCATED AT THE
BOTTOM OF A VALLEY WHERE
THE CASTLE OF ORSINI WAS
ERECTED, AND POPULATED
BY SCULPTURES AND SMALL
BUILDINGS DIVIDED AMONG
OF THE NATURAL
VEGETATION.
<
OGRE (ANTHROPOMORPHIC
HEAD) USED AS A SHEEPFOLD
summer houses or exotic glasshouses. Bomarzo is situated not far
from Viterbo and Soriano and was
originally called Polimatrium, city
of Mars. Like Soriano, the village
is elevated and here too a structure
towers above the old houses: a castle
converted into a palace, which also
formerly belonged to the Orsini
family. At the foot of the village,
hidden away in a small wooded
valley, like a pearl in an oyster, lies
the sculpture garden. There in the
sacred grove, a small temple can be
found, a deliberately twisted house
and the stone monsters: sphinxes,
bears, sirens and the three-headed
Cerberus.
VICINO ORSINI
The residence’s gardens were
created by Vicino Orsini, the Duke
Pierfrancesco of Orsini. He was
born in 1528 and died in 1588.
An educated humanist, he was
interested in the Arts and was their
patron. He devoted his life to the
happiness of his House and his wife,
Julia Farnese. After Julia Farnese’s
death, he created the plan for this
garden. He didn’t call this garden a
giardino, but Bosco Sacro, a Sacred
Grove or Bosco dei Monstri, the
Monsters’ grove. Monster must be
understood in the Latin meaning of
monstrare, which means to show and
demonstrate. This then means that
from stop to stop, from stage to stage,
each element is a component of an
immense, very neoplatonic poem to
his lost love. The Park of Monsters
remained in oblivion till 1954 when
it was bought by Mr Giovanni Bettini
who with loving care has managed it.
06 < CLUB DONNY #8 2012
of fabriques – grottoes, japanese
bridges, pavilions, Chinese jiosks
or pagodas, Roman or Gothic ruins,
tombd, pyramids, obeliisks, small
temples – where used, according
to their structure, as meeting
places or as rooms for meditation,
HYPNEROTOMACHI POLOPHILI
WAS FOR THE FIRST TIME
PRINTED ANONYMOUSLY
IN 1499 IN THE EDITORIAL
OFFICE OF ALDUS MANUTIUS
>
HYPNEROTOMACHI POLOPHILI
In 1551, Vicino Orsini, who has fed
his ideas reading Hypnerotomachia
Poliphili, asked the architect and
archaeologist Pyrrho Ligorio to install
monsters, including sphinxes, around
his park at Bomarzo. He wanted
not only to provoke amazement
and wonder in visitors to his park,
but first and foremost to create an
esoteric itinerary ‘to illustrate as
far as possible the fecundity and
fullness of his intelligence and
his imaginative faculties’. The
constructions, inspired by classical
antiquity and the Orient, sometimes
essentially decorative in function,
were not the products of chance,
rather they marked the boundaries
of pre-planned itineraries. All types
ANEKDOTE:
‘ONE DAY DALÍ LEFT ROME TO
VISIT THE PARK OF BOMARZO
WITH A CORTEGE OF CAMERAMEN, FRIENDS AND
EXTRA’S, DETERMINED TO
HAVE HIMSELF
PHOTOGRAPHED HOLDING A
CANDLE AND CONVERSING
WITH A WHITE CAT IN THE JAWS
OF THE HUGEST MONSTER. THE
VILLAGE OF BOMARZO
YIELDED BLACK CATS, GRAY
CATS, BROWN CATS, GINGER
CATS, BUT IT TOOK HOURS TO
FIND A WHITE ONE. DALI WAS
SO PLEASED WITH THE FOTOGRAPHS AND THE EXCURSION
AS A WHOLE THAT HE VERY
NEARLY BOUGHT THE PALAZZO
[OF BOMARZO], WHERE HE
PLANNED TO HOLD A MAGNIFICENT BALL FOR ALL THE
BEGGARS IN ROME. HIS WIFE
[GALA], PREFERRING SMALL
PARTIES IN HER HOTEL APARTMENT IN NEW YORK, VETOED
THE PROJECT.’
THE GARDENS OF BOMARZO
A great deal has changes since the
nineteen forties. The gardens have
been freed from the worst of the
overgrowth, the sculptures have been
partly (though not always expertly)
restored, committees and working
groups have become involved in
what now counts as an important
piece of Italian heritage and one
of the masterpieces of landscape
gardening.
BOMARZO
SECRET GARDEN
MICHIEL KOOLBERGEN
In his fascinating study Het laatste
geheim van Bomarzo, art historian
Michiel Koolbergen (1953-2002),
who already authored a book in 1984
about the influence of gardens on
the work of contemporary writers
and artists, attempts to decipher the
‘secret code’ of the sculpture groups.
According to Koolbergen, it has now
been established that the sculpture
garden of Bomarzo was laid out by
Vicino Orsini, a descendant of one
of Italy’s oldest and most famous
families.
HELLA HAASE
Hella Haasse (1918-2011) was
less certain of that in her essay De
tuinen van Bomarzo, though she
too could not deny the influence of
Vicino. He certainly contributed
the last structures to the garden,
although according to her the actual
initiative for that came from the onegeneration-older, one-eyed Orsino
Orsini, whose wife, another Giulia
Farnese, but just as stunning as that of
Vicino, had openly been the mistress
of the Borgia pope Alexander VI.
THE LEANING TOWER
(TORRE PENDENTE)
>
STRUGGLE BETWEEN GIANTS
(LOTTA FRA I GIGANTI)
>
While for Koolbergen, Bomarzo
is a lover’s garden, for Haasse it is
a ‘park of sex and violence’. The
figures responsible for the garden's
creation are just as different as the
purposes behind it. For Koolbergen
it is the courtly Vicino, in all regards
a model of renaissance nobility, pure
in body and heart; for Haasse it is the
disfigured Orsino, as twisted in body
and mind as the sculpture garden he
conceived.
CAREL WILLINK
The Dutch painter Carel Willink
(1900-1983) made various Bomarzo
paintings in the nineteen sixties
and eighties, with intriguing titles
such as: Unnecessary witnesses and
The eternal scream. He placed the
sculptures from Bomarzo Park in
vast, barren planes, as though on
an oversized stage, on which they
scream at us inaudibly and thus
impotently.
MANUEL MUJICA LAINEZ
The Argentinean writer Manuel
Mujica Lainez (1910-1984) created
his own reality regarding the origins
of the sculpture garden, which he
first visited in 1958. The result
was the bulky novel Bomarzo.
Argentinean composer Alberto
Ginastera (1916-1983) had read
Lainez’s novel Bomarzo (1962)
and he visited the writer at home
to ask him to write the text for his
composition. Lainez complied with
the request and wrote three texts in
prose and three poems, in which the
life of his novel’s character Vicino
Orsini is summarized. The prose
pieces are intended to be recited by
the ‘narrator’ and are alternated with
the poems, which are partly sung and
part recited by a baritone. This is all
accompanied by a chamber orchestra,
comprising two violas and a viola
d’amore, two cellos, two contrabass,
a harp, harpsichord, piano (for
duo), celesta, wind instruments and
percussion.
Used sources for this page; Ger Groot – Monsterlijk geheimschrift; De beeldentuin van Bomarzo
NRC Handelsblad, 08/08/’97 and Michiel Koolbergen – Het laatste geheim van Bomarzo.
A warm thank you to Willie Stehouwer for pointing out the subject Secret Garden.
CLUB DONNY #8 2012 > 31
THE
INTANGIBILITY
OF OCCUPY
ULTRA-SHORT NOTES
JORINDE SEIJDEL
Last autumn a great many cities and towns,
including in the Netherlands, from Amsterdam to
Hendrik-Ido-Ambacht, were characterized by the
playful encampments of the Occupy movement.
Various squares, fields, indistinct grass strips
or just a few square metres of pavement were
occupied and dotted with the now familiar instant
tents, which appear suitable both for nature-loving
hikers and activists and the urban homeless. But
while Occupy in places like New York City was
publically supported by renowned institutions,
such as The New School and Columbia University
and by eminent intellectuals, including Naomi
Klein, Naom Chomsky and Slavoj Žižek, the
movement’s intellectual profile barely got off the
ground in the Netherlands and many here continue
to associate it, laughingly or irritably, with vague
and grubby public inaction, instead of a new form
of global resistance to the tyranny of the market.
It was in any case remarkable how in a short time
and more or less simultaneously around the world,
these unique biotopes appeared; places where life
takes possession of space and time by claiming
these dimensions for an indefinite period.
By now, we also know that life went on as usual
on these activist urban camp sites, counterparts of
the recreational rural camp sites and of occupying
nature, and that they had medical posts, kitchens,
libraries, massage salons and various ‘assemblies’,
while inside the tents all manner of personal
desires were expressed passionately. (Wherever
you camp, nature inevitably pops up and the
meeting of souls occurs in a broad sense – ‘Let’s
occupy each other’ – as the Italian intellectual and
activist Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi campaigned for so
energetically, in order to encourage solidarity and
empathy in the urban space.) At the same time,
however, these Occupy camps were monitored
and patrolled by guards, something that one
certainly does not associate with everyday life,
but rather with a national emergency. Thus, the
encampments attest to both a domestication of
32 < CLUB DONNY #8 2012
the resistance that has become embedded in the
everyday and the militarization of public space
and public life, in which screening, protection and
tightened control take place.
If one considers the heterogeneous population of
these places, from activists and concerned citizens
to tourists and homeless people, the question as
to the nature of the Occupy camps is reiterated.
How do these embody the topical, social and
political? They seem, above all, to be places full
of internal contradictions that include features of
an army camp, internment camp, holiday camp
and a refugee camp, but also of a demonstration,
a commune, a festival and a symposium. As a
place and space, Occupy at any rate appears to be
a departure from the continuous space and regular
order of time and, thus, in Michel Foucault’s
terms manifests itself as a heterotopia and a
heterochrony respectively – terms he presented
in order to describe spaces in which a different
regime prevails than in the outside environment.
In his thinking, the Italian philosopher Giorgio
Agamben regards the camp as the bio-political
paradigm of the current era – bio-political
being a designation for political systems in
which bio-power is wielded, that is to say, all
sorts of domination methods in order to control
life. The paradigm for modern politics is no
longer the city, but the camp, which has now
become firmly embedded in the heart of the city,
according to Agamben. He sees the camp and its
inhabitants as a model to indicate that citizens
are increasingly deprived of their rights and
that they increasingly find themselves in spaces
where a national emergency is declared and the
normal order is abandoned. And in his book The
Coming Community (1993), Agamben talks about
the community of the future as no longer being
based on shared identity or shared opinions that
can be represented. In it he refers to, for instance,
the protest in Tiananmen Square, the Square of
Heavenly Peace in Beijing where on 4 June 1989
over a million students and citizens demonstrated
against the regime of the Chinese Communist
Party, an uprising that was brutally suppressed.
According to Agamben a community was formed
there, which did not share a single concrete
demand.
It is tempting and simultaneously perilous to
apply these theories, behind which lie grand
philosophical-political ideas, to the Occupy
movement, its encampments and its resistance
without a platform. But it is clear that the
authorities, traditional media, and some of the
critics and the public find it very difficult to
grasp Occupy and its presence in space and time.
It is significant in this respect that, for instance,
the VVD in Eindhoven – so as to be rid of the
activists – no longer wanted to see the protests
there as a demonstration, but as an ‘event’, for
which different laws apply. And out of incapacity
and frustration the same VVD argued for the
Occupy demonstrators to have their social security
benefits cut. In order to halt this disorganizing
phenomenon, freedom of speech and freedom to
demonstrate are trampled underfoot.
Last winter, under pressure from the authorities
and the icy weather, the Occupy encampments
in many places were dismantled or abandoned.
This, however, does not necessarily mean that the
movement has dissolved or collapsed. After all,
it has an unprecedented parallel presence on the
global social networks: in a sense, the physical
encampments are no more than ephemeral
materializations of digital activism, and therein,
perhaps, lies the newness, radicalism and potency
of Occupy. Erasure is not an option. As soon as
one of the encampments is disbanded, a new
one forms elsewhere, online and/or offline, as a
junction or ‘node’ in a network of physical and
virtual lines and connections. It is indeed about a
reclamation of time and space, and thus ultimately
about a redistribution of the communal.
Amsterdam, February 2012
GREENHOUSE
FRAGRANCES
CHRISTIE ARENDS
The mild, familiar aroma of warm, damp soil and
plants, mixed with the sickly smell of a rotting
process, combined with the humid heat of the palm
house in the Botanical Garden in Copenhagen
always brings back many childhood memories.
It’s funny how the tranquillity and smells of
bygone days can be regained in the centre of a big
city. But the Botanical Garden in Copenhagen is
not just any old place in the middle of a bustling
city. It almost literally constitutes the heart of
the city that is so tremendously dear to me. And
there in the middle of the city, as a back garden
to the apartment of my dearest friend, lies the
Botanical Garden. With those magnificent old
palm houses and exotic greenhouses full of cacti,
ferns, palms and many plants that I’d never seen
before, let alone that I knew even one by name.
The latter is not so surprising, considering I can
rarely provide the correct name for any plant. My
lack of knowledge on plants and flowers is truly
phenomenal and above all intriguing, bearing in
mind the place where I grew up. Not to mention
my lack of green fingers.
A fig tree might be the only tree that I am familiar
with; it’s one of the few plants I managed to grow
on my own city balcony. Incidentally, it’s odd
that I’ve never noticed that tree in the Botanical
Garden in Copenhagen. But I never really looked
for it either; I generally tend to just wander around
when I’m there.
Back at the door of the palm house in Copenhagen,
which, when opened, emits a fragrance that
inevitably takes me back to times past, to my
father’s eight thousand square metre workspace,
where he grew flowers with love, knowledge
and patience in a place that to me was mainly an
immense playground. As a young girl I learned
to walk on the long, dead straight paths that led
through the greenhouses, and a few years later I
learned to ride a bicycle on them. In the winters
it was comfortably warm there, sometimes even
tropical, and I played hide and seek among the
plants with my nephew, girlfriends and the boys
living nearby, and we built temporary scrap
wooden shelters for the goats and chickens, for
whom it had become too cold outside. Wearing
just a T-shirt, flared trousers and I myself forever
in wellington boots, we paced up and down in the
greenhouse, which had a very special fragrance.
Warm, damp soil combined with the plants, all of
which also had their own smell; I recognize that
fragrance immediately.
In the mid seventies – I have a vivid recollection
of it – my father, always up for an experiment,
decided to cultivate heleconias for a few seasons.
Huge plants with flowers that most closely
resemble a parrot’s crest and which transformed
the entire greenhouse into a tropical rain forest. At
least, that’s how my seven-year-old imagination
was able to picture it with ease, when at the
height of summer, 30 degrees outside, 37 in the
greenhouse, I would be endlessly running back and
forth under the sprinkler installation in a bikini. I
think there cannot be many better places to grow
up. Though my nephew of the same age lived on
a farm and I thought that too was really exciting.
I mainly knew about terraced houses with pocketsized gardens from my classmates, who I used to
visit sometimes to play; usually indoors, usually
something involving Barbie dolls.
Meanwhile, my brother and I were each given
a patch of ground in the garden – which,
incidentally, was my mother’s domain – where
we could grow our own plants in order to develop
our ‘green fingers’ at a young age. It may have
been under the assumption that what’s learnt in
the cradle lasts till the grave, in my case, however,
it was also pointless. Nothing survived; even the
valiant African marigolds gave up in my little
garden, with the exception of the now majestic
oak tree that I received on national tree-planting
day in 1978. As I got older, I used the greenhouses
less and less as a playground. It was now an
economic factor where I had my first part-time job
and where the money was made that enabled me
to go horse riding, go out and later to study.
The fact that I had absolutely no aptitude, nor
ambition to run a company like that of my
father was already clear at a young age and my
brother also decided to take a different path. My
relationship with the greenhouses, the plants,
the delicious smell and the warmth petered out.
I’d moved into lodgings by then and although I
still came home regularly, I no longer visited the
greenhouses very often. Thus the announcement
that the land had been sold and the greenhouses
would be demolished barely affected me. It
was good that this place, which had given me
and particularly my father so much enjoyment
and love, could now provide my parents with a
carefree life. The greenhouses were demolished in
the summer of 2003 and I particularly remember
the beauty of it. The frames about to collapse,
with an optimistically flowering amaryllis here
and there among the cables, glass shards and
withered plants. On a warm Sunday afternoon I
bade farewell in my own way. The heat of the day
made the earth parched and brittle and an insipid
smell hung in the motionless air. There was not a
breath of wind that afternoon and it was deathly
still. It felt unreal. I made countless photos and a
video, as if I were documenting a monument. A
monument on the verge of collapse, it’s true, but
in my eyes it was above all beautiful. A monument
to the carefree days of my youth.
During those weeks my father was quieter than
usual and sometimes a little absent. We, the rest of
the family, were all agreed that it was a wonderful
conclusion to a working life that had been mainly
bountiful and largely carefree. The photos were
developed and I had a few printed as a gift for my
father. I thought they were stunning. The beauty of
the lines, nature growing rank, the bright sunlight
and the many contrasts made me very satisfied
with the results on the day I gave him the photos.
My father felt differently. When he saw the photos
he buried his face in his hands. The tears ran down
his cheeks. He saw only his life’s work, which all
that time he’d had to watch being demolished and
dismantled piece by piece. What for weeks had
been an inconsolable dim recollection had now
been mercilessly captured in the photos by me.
He had absolutely no interest in the aesthetics of
light and lines and he did not even begin to see
the beauty of decay. I thought my father would
be pleased with the photos I gave him that day,
instead it became the day my father cried.
CLUB DONNY #8 2012 > 33
DONNY’S FAVOURITES
JACQUES MAJORELLE
Jacques Majorelle was born in 1886 within a family of artists. Since 1910 he discovers Egypt and the Nile. He
visits the orient with a new look, deprived of all orientalist fantasies. In 1919 he settles in Marrakech to continue
his career of painter, where he acquires a ground which was going to become the Majorelle garden. Since 1947
he opens his garden’s doors to the public.
THE ENGLISH RIVIERA
METRONOMY
Devonshire, England’s Metronomy have traveled an impressive stylistic distance in the short span of three
albums. The group began in 2006 as glitchy electronic smirkers, proffering a garishly irreverent take on
chinstroking IDM. Yet for their third full-length effort, The English Riviera, they’ve fully transitioned into a
sleek, urbane pop-rock outfit, taking polished cues from the well-heeled likes of Steely Dan and Phoenix.
THE GARDENS OF ALCATRAZ
WWW.ALCATRAZGARDENS.ORG
For more than a century, gardens were an important part of everyday life for officers, families, and prisoners
confined to Alcatraz by sentence or duty. Many of the plants selected by these unheralded gardeners proved to
be excellent choices for the harsh and barren environment, flourishing through the four decades of neglect that
followed the prison’s closing. Alcatraz’s current visitors experience an island that is alive with colourful plants
gathered decades ago from around the world, and complemented by newly introduced plants. These historic
gardens not only illustrate the importance of gardens to the human spirit, but also the ecological benefits and
aesthetic possibilities of sustainable gardening.
TODRA GORGE
Todra Gorge is a canyon in the eastern part of the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco, near the town of Tinerhir.
Both the Todra and neighbouring Dades Rivers have carved out cliff-sided canyons (Arabic: wadi) on their final
40 kilometres through the mountains. The last 600 metres of the Todra gorge are the most spectacular. Here the
canyon narrows to a flat stony track, in places as little as 10 metres wide, with sheer and smooth rock walls up
to 160 metres high on each side. The scenery is spectacular.
SALVADOR DALÍ AT BOMARZO
WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/WATCH?V=-QB0CDOQJTI
Salvador Dalí at Bomarzo, 10 November 1948, video historical archives of Istituto Luce, Rome.
SYLENE STENOPHYLLA
FLOWER IN BLOOM AFTER 32,000 YEARS
Fruit and seeds that were found in a fossilized squirrel’s burrow in the Siberian permafrost have been thawed
and revived by Russian scientists. Several seeds have produced flowers. This is being seen as a pioneering
experiment. The Sylene stenophylla has become the oldest plant ever to be regenerated. The white flower even
has viable seeds. The plant looks similar to a modern version, which still grows in the northeast of Siberia.
PREFAB HOME
WWW.MUJI.NET/IE/MADONOIE
Join MUJI prefab home line: prefab houses are modular shelters which are environmental friendly, flexible
towards family sizes, comfortable and minimal.
FROM YOUR OWN CITY
UIT JE EIGEN STAD (from your own city) is a promising new Rotterdam initiative on urban farming,
which kicks off this year. The idea is to produce food on a small and large scale in sophisticated ecological
circuits. This mainly concerns the ‘fringes’ of the city, in disused industrial locations, on the roofs of office
buildings, in former showrooms or temporarily available green spaces. UIT JE EIGEN STAD aims to initiate a
transformation by actually producing food in these places. This makes the urban farmer into an urban nomad,
completely attuned to the dynamics of the city. The Marconistrip will be the first location utilized and from this
place-making location, scores of temporary satellite locations can be set up and operated elsewhere in the city.
Club Donny is a biannual magazine
on the personal experience of
nature in the urban environment
presented by Samira Ben Laloua,
Frank Bruggeman and Ernst van der
Hoeven.
PAGE 01 / 36 Rotterdam,
Marconiplein (frontpage) + Nijmegen,
Valkhofpark (backpage),
Ghislain Amar
PAGE 02 Amsterdam, Andre Dekker
TEXTPAGE 03 Rooms,
Sanneke van Hassel
TEXTPAGE 04 Death in Munich,
Job Floris
TEXTPAGE 05 What to do with all
this Nature? Zoë Gray
TEXTPAGE 06 / 31 Bomarzo
PAGE 7 / 30 Bleiswijk,
Mathijs Labadie
PAGE 08 / 29 Amsterdam,
Loes Martens
PAGE 09 / 28 Can Tho, Vietnam,
Wytske van Keulen
PAGE 10 / 28 Tai O, Lantau Island,
Hong Kong, Ernst van der Hoeven
PAGE 11 / 26 Hermosillo, Mexico,
Chris Kabel
PAGE 12 / 25 Shanghai, Rubén Dario
Kleimeer
PAGE 13 / 24 São Paulo, Parque
Ibirapuera, Jan Konings
PAGE 14 / 23 New York, Central
Park, Janine Schrijver
PAGE 15 / 22 Mount Vernon,
Virginia, Huib Haye van der Werf
PAGE 16 / 21 Langvik, Torsnes,
Norway, Eric Roelen
PAGE 17 / 20 Maine, Atlantic Gallery
Maine, Jeanne van Heeswijk &
Marcel van der Meijs
PAGE 18 / 19 Santa Cruz de la Sierra,
Bolivia, Frank Bruggeman
TEXTPAGE 32 The Intangibility of
Occupy – Ultra-short Notes,
Jorinde Seijdel
TEXTPAGE 33 Greenhouse
Fragrances, Christie Arends
TEXTPAGE 34 Donny’s favourites
PAGE 35 Érezée, Belgium,
Taufiq Hosen
HONEY (BAL)
Honey from Turkish director Semih Kaplanoğlu 1963, awarded with the Golden Beer, Berlin 2010.
Yusuf is an only child who lives with his parents in an isolated mountain area. For the young boy, the
surrounding forest becomes a place of mystery and adventure when accompanying his father on the job. Yusuf
watches in admiration as his beekeeper father Yakup hangs specially-made hives at the top of the tallest trees.
With the skill of a tightrope acrobat, he must often suspend dangerously from the uppermost branches to gather
honey. Yusuf’s anxieties escalate when his father must travel to a faraway forest on a risky mission. His father
gone, Yusuf slips into silence to the distress of his pretty young mother Zehra. Days pass and Yakup still does
not return. Yusuf summons all of his courage and goes deep into the forest to search for his father. A journey
into the unknown...
TRANSLATION / Mike Ritchie
DESIGN / Ben Laloua/Didier Pascal
PRINTING / die Keure, Brugge
PUBLISHER / post editions
www.post-editions.com
SUBSCRIPTION / www.bruil.info
ISSN: 1879-7466
© 2012 Club Donny
www.clubdonny.com
The authors and contributors.
Reproduction without permission
prohibited.
SPECTACULAR VIEW
WWW.DAKVANROTTERDAM.NL
Spectacular to see our homecity as a panoramic rooftop scenary.
This publication was made possible
by, TENT, Rotterdam and ’s Zomers,
Rotterdam www.zomersbloemen.nl
34 < CLUB DONNY #8 2012