strangers in the city

This week I was asking myself, and my boyfriend, and my friends, and everyone, "should I stay or should I go". I arrived in Philadelphia exactly 3 months ago. Now I have to write a report about my work here, decide if I want to stay longer in order to get my grant extended. It's not an easy choice when we are strangers in the city. Particularly when we are even more strangers in our home town than in any other city. Strange this feeling of being displaced. Maybe nowadays we are all strangers in every city of this globalized world, nomads without roots, connected by mobile technology, always connected, always so distant. It's not easy to leave people and places behind. To leave the complexity of things that constructed our identity. And what is that ? What world is this made of inner and outer worlds, feelings, sensations, perceptions, languages, gestures and places...? We live in the mobile emotions age. Emotional landscapes. Uncontrolled, wild, provocative. What's the past ? What's the future ? What about NOW ? This week I was thinking about the difference between immigration and exile. When our country doesn't give us the possibility to stay, when we feel obliged to go abroad in order to survive, to create, to live a more complete life. What happen to our inner feelings ? What can I do with them ?

As a creative person, I always try to put my pains, my thoughts, my perceptions in my life and in my work. Today I started to read the text of Krzysztof Wodiczko and the words were talking directly to me. He talks about the city to come, the non-place, the present time, the acceptance of the personnel experience as a stranger and he talk about the "THIRD-ZONE", a zone of creation, of infusion, of crossing the boundaries. "Where are you from ?" should never replace "In what way can your past and present experience contribute to everybody's well-being today and tomorrow ?"

All this thoughts and some walks in the city created in me the will to ACT, here and now, to performe, as a complete human being, with body and soul. Performe in a public space of this new city, in downtown -- where the movement doesn't stop I want to introduce stillness.
How much can a body/mind stop and relax and reconnect with one's inner emotions and tactile feelings in the middle of the hectic city ? I am also a Shiatsu Masseuse, a Japanese technique which treats the human being in a holistic and integrative way.

The idea for my performance (i'll call it "the third zone") is to offer a 5 minute massage to people who wants to stop and feel. In other cultures this is a natural thing. The touch, the human contact, the need to be part of... How will people react ? and I want to film it, to take photos: the peaceful face, my hands, the smile... against a background of urban street movement.

to be continued next week...