Lost Worlds.

November 2012

The city lost its scents of a century ago.
‘Bad’ odours are expelled from the public domain.
The industry has left the city centre and commerce determines now the flavour of the city.

What connects me with the city is not this ‘clinical purity’, but the dirty and rough flavour of long lost worlds.

Upon entering the city by train, you are indulged by a benevolence odour of fresh wood.
Sometimes disrupted by a bit of melting metal.
Can you imagine a better welcome?

If you continue your trail next to the uncovered road, you discover through the cold and cutting wind the sour and rotting odour of the work in progress at the sewers.

With you head in the wind, crossing the Erasmusbrug, you notice that the brine air of the Maas is so strong that you can even taste it.

But the most beautiful discoveries are difficult to find.
You have to search thoroughly.
Often at the periphery of the city. Only then can it be found.

The smell of wet moss, fresh wind through the leaves, freshly mowed grass, humid and rotting wood.

How clinical the city tries to be, nature is always present.

 

Mike Schäfer