The transit lounge is the archetypal transit space, the point where the hyper-global + hyper-local coincide; a location which blurs traditional conceptions of geo-political boundaries, creating pockets of international space within the borders of individual nation-states. An in-between space, it exists relative to a fixed departure and arrival point, not to the area that surrounds it.

The Transit Lounge is a series of overlapping residencies for Australian and German artists and architects in Berlin. It is also a blog where themes relating to the project will develop, collaborations will be initiated and sustained, and observations on the city collected. The Transit Lounge invites you to participate in these transnational conversations by commenting on the blog.

For more information email us: transit [AT] transitlounge [DOT] org

The transit lounge is supported by Culturia and the DAZ

Thursday, April 12, 2007

What's your Egypt?

Dear all,

I'm sorry - I vanished for a time because I moved and was in a state of transit that didn't give me so much space to reflect on transit itself...

But now it's over and I try again to create a kind of blog moderator. (suggestions/ideas about what to do as a blog moderator are always welcome!)

Easter and Pessah is over now - and anyway I'm not religious. But I believe, that all these stories and myths are still circulating and they are deeply rooted in our (western) cultural/individual archive of imagination. That's why I just want to recollect the story : The jews flew from Egypt to the "Holy Land", so they were migrating. That's why they eat until nowadays this special kind of bread that doesn't take to much time to prepare: a migration bread, a transit bread. Jesus turned/translated this physical migration into a more spiritual transition.
But anyhow: "Egypt" means "frontier, limit, barrier" in Hebrew. So today Pessah means to cross inner boarders, to overrun the personal "Egypt" inside oneself.

I find that story interesting, because it's not only a story about transit but also about the opposite of transit: about boarders, limits, barriers - and maybe swells (the red sea?).
And I asked myself if the transit doesn't always rely on limits. There's an interdependence, a reciprocal figure in it. Because you need a limit to feel the transgression - and where is the space in between, the swell?

See you this evening

Alma

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