In Praise of Materials & Things
by Khadeeja Farrukh
They say that when everything has perished, only material remains as a last reminder of the legacies left behind. Even though materials are a major torchbearer of reality in which we live, our understanding of material things has been dramatically impacted by the linguistic and social turn in history. Material value is always articulated with respect to some tangent attached to them, be it cultural, semiotically meaningful or heritably valuable. As Michel Serres argues about things as the only diagnostic factor to define human society in contrast to animals, ironically, the discourse of things ‘as they are’ has never been taken into account while studying the traces of humanity in the past.1
Man’s love for taming the wild character of its surroundings is perhaps also inherently visible in the ‘bourgeois attitude’ of academia towards all things dirty, ruined, out of place and chaotic. Thus, in the pursuit of understanding things, even though they are welcomed back, they undergo a discursive process of classification and characterization. Perhaps, the most striking rationale behind the gradual erasure of things from the memory of twentieth century conscience can be identified within the roots of modern thinking.2
Whether it is Immanuel Kant asserting how things-in-itself can only be experienced through our own thinking and reason; and cannot be encountered with their innateness; or Lefebvre’s references to Marxian theory of commodities to postulate that things hide social relations; for philosophers of twentieth century; material in modern world became a hallmark for representing an alienated and rather inauthentic world.3 Things were called dangerous with their deceptive meanings; with signs producing and emanating forces of power, production and social abstraction. The stigmatization of materials, at hand of subjectification and reason, led to a negative perception of materialism; one that reiterated the relation of people with materials to be wrong, abstract and unreal.
Another encroachment on the emanant meaning of materials is through the view that ‘entities are produced in relations’. Like a petrol station is only useful if there is a road right next to it.4 This non-reconcilable need of the modern urban living to be connected and contextual, leaves no room for things out of context, things out of place, vague terrains and ‘otherized’ spaces to be left as they are.
As discussed above, even though the modern take on approaching material is biased in the philosophical tradition; one can argue that the materials have taken on an autonomous identity and are now being viewed outside the traditional disciplines. It is the things that dictate social behavior patterns and individual cognitive perceptions now. Bruno Latour argues on this as:
“If religion, art and styles are necessary to “reflect,” “reify,” “materialize,” “embody” society—to use some of the social theorists’ favorite verbs—then are objects, not, in the end, its co-producers? Is not society built literally—not metaphorically—of gods, machines, sciences, arts and styles? … Maybe social scientists have simply forgotten that before projecting itself on to things society has to be made, built, constructed? And out of what material could it be built if not out of nonsocial, nonhuman resources?”(Latour, 1993: 54) 5
One cannot argue against how objects and materials formulate our cognitive memories, and how our experience of reality is largely embellished by our exposure to familiar, predictable and repetitive engagement with materials. The in-placeness of things necessitates the structure of our lives. Throughout the course of human history, the notion of stability has always been defined to be ‘a normal state of things’. This normal state of things resonates with social order, durability and usability. As Heidegger argues over the notion of belongingness in his lectures on dwelling, things in their located place play an important role in evoking familiarity and situatedness for the dwellers.6 It is only when the order of things becomes disturbed as a consequence of some catastrophe, like famine or war; the existential importance of things become eminent.
However, even with this approach, the return to things has been rather selective. It brings about a whole new debate about the ‘rules’ about which things need to be brought back, and which needs to be dumped or consciously ignored; i.e., the discourse of defining heritage against waste. This also brings about the whole new debate about the unwanted material of the past that weighs heavily on some societies than others.
Like in the case of post-Soviet societies, the sheer abundance of the intense stroke of material legacy is not easy to get rid of. Does this abundance of material legacy also guide and persist a Soviet mentality? As Bjørnar Olsen argues, does concrete material reality also conditions people’s lives, a Soviet mentality, an obedient attitude? 7
As argued earlier, the objective material culture is often prejudiced in favor of subjective human experience. The heritage discourse also undergoes the process of inherent ‘value making’ that deem them significant.8 Meant to promote western-elite values, the discourse of heritage, just like museums, is too narrow-sighted. It responds to the agenda of showing monumental and aesthetically pleasing, and ignores the rest. Just like the disowning of materials in the wake of modernization, heritage studies also engage in the ‘intangible’ representations of social values that the ‘tangible’ reminders of the past reflect. But the world of materials, ‘the tangibles’ do not have any imperative of their own. Here, the so-called value of traditional discipline of heritage is based on societal perceptions, human attachment, historical identity and a sense of belongingness.
Here, one might argue, whether or not the sense of belongingness of materials to a place is important? Today’s presumed waste might be turned into something valuable in the future. So how can one define a rigid set of rules for heritage? What is heritage exactly? It is important to not forget the significance of the life of materials as an entity on its own, and to understand that the ‘generative’ process of ageing of materials unveils the layers of society. In that respect, can the process of ageing and ruining also be deemed as heritage? As Þora Petursdottir argues in his essay ‘Concrete matters: Ruins of modernity and the things called heritage’,
“While a rather acceptable definition, the rarely considered reality is that things or heritage is passed on to the future whether we like it or not, whether we manage it or not.” 9
In the context of Estonia, a post-Soviet country, the bitter memory of the Soviet regime has been quite fresh in the first generation after the country’s independence. The ethnographic research postulates that the deliberate degradation of Soviet infrastructure is a form of revolt at the hands of post-Soviet nationalism.10 The dilapidated condition of the material evidence suggests a past that is not worthy to be remembered, but does neglecting something also suggests that it is forgotten or it vanishes, especially with the context of massive material remains in post-Soviet societies?11 There is a close connection of politics and power between post-socialist reforms and remains of the Soviet world, that is largely dictated by political motives, despite the inheritance of materials, ideas and practices from the past regime.
In the context of Estonia, there has been a stark generational shift in their behavior towards Soviet material remains. One cannot deny that inheritances that do not find any means for continuation still somehow persist as a constant reminder of their presence. The conscious effort to dematerialize the past identities and enforced act of forgetting the previous regime has been changed. The younger generation is more open to DIY strategies to accept, re-appropriate and acknowledge the huge socialist stroke in their land. The 2013 Tallinn Architecture Biennale also highlighted the need for a change in attitude of people to deal with historical architecture and material remains, those that considerably shaped much of urban and rural environments in Eastern Europe.
Many seeds of today’s spatial syntax, as they have evolved now, have been planted in socialist period. If one is to argue that the manifest of ‘now’ is from the seeds of ‘then’, where does one categorize heritage?
In the case of Paljassaare, an ex-military zone in the north of Tallinn, heritage takes on a different level. Many of the ex-military zones in the northern periphery of Estonia have now been declared nature’s reserves under Natura 2000. The sanctuary of birds in these areas is because of military presence in these areas.12 Filled with remnants of military material remains, the google search on Paljassaare shows this area to be biodiverse, green and ‘untouched’.
One can sense negligence of material remains in this area to be a form of revolt against the Soviet military remains. In his paper on ecological imaginaries in Tallinn, Maros Krivy discusses the global image Estonia portrays:
“A country where “clean and untouched nature co-exists with the world’s most digitally advanced society” (Brand Estonia, 2017) was one among many similar slogans that would pop up on the delegates’ devices.” 13
Such ‘intentional’ ecologies of the present are politically infused ‘imaginaries’ against the unintentional ‘realities’ of the past, those that are quite visible once one takes a tour to Paljassaare.
Filled with military remnants, this work tries to engage with Paljassaare through the lens of myth, imagination and iconoclasm. Dealing with the theme of cause and effect, the research questions the discourse of materials and heritage through an abstract narration, using language and film as a tool to create a sense of surreality, as is felt within these remnants all over Paljassaare. Through an abstract narration, an attempt has been made to expose the unsaid and unaccepted realities in a post-Soviet world; that tries to draw connections between the events of the past and how that shapes the realities of the present; and how it is being ignored for the envisioned future of the Peninsula. It poses some important questions, the answers to which are probably unknown and unknowable. Questions of drawing farfetched yet undeniable cause and their effects:
Would there be a Paljassaare if there were no gun fires invented?
Would Paljassaare be a peninsula if there was no Russo-Japanese war?
Would there be birds here if there was no Soviet military?
Isn’t everything of the past not heritage? Or is it to be selected as to what is to be remembered and what is not? Can it be possible?
Has it been possible so far within the sticky and stubborn material reality of post-Soviet societies?
The poetic memoir engages the listener to delve into the imaginative art of storytelling, to immerse oneself into this mythical and imaginative zone at the edge of city dweller’s imagination; to think of a cave with treasures, to think of gods and demons, and to envision a city with the conscience of an ancient city dweller. Genius Loci or spirit of the space is the guardian spirit of a space. It becomes visible to the visitor as a totalitarian, unspeakable yet recognizable experience. It helped the ancient man to create stories of the space so in order to make sense of it with definite characters.14 The aim of opting for mythical imaginaries as a medium is to preserve the fragmentation and disintegration of the authentic experience of the space, that is soon going vanish at hands of neo-liberal developments in Paljassaare.
The process of engaging with the site evolved from orating a poem in a military watch tower to writing object memoirs under the theme of ‘military vs nature’ & ‘nature as heritage’. (on right)
For the final outcome, a film screened in a Soviet military bunker, summarizes the entire research in an abstract and poetic narration, guided with surreal military material remnants in Paljassaare. Taking inspiration from Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Stalker, the technique of iconoclasm to devise new imaginaries and meanings for these material remnants is explored. The way one handles the camera changes everything, it invites us to create our own perceptions of what is seen, how it is conveyed and how it invites the viewer to delve into the world of myth. Just like Estonia depicts ‘ecological imaginaries’ in its political narrative, the film tries to break down the perception of materials using the medium of camera and film to ‘create new post-socialist material imaginaries’ in Paljassaare.
References
Olsen, B. (2013). An Archeology of Matter. How Matter Matters, Objects, Artifacts and Materiality in Organization Studies. University Press Scholarship Online. P. 1
Olsen, B. (2013). An Archeology of Matter. How Matter Matters, Objects, Artifacts and Materiality in Organization Studies. University Press Scholarship Online. P. 2
Olsen, B. (2013). An Archeology of Matter. How Matter Matters, Objects, Artifacts and Materiality in Organization Studies. University Press Scholarship Online. P. 3-4
Ouzman, S. (2006). The Beauty of Letting Go: Fragmentary Museums & Archeologies of Archive. Oxford. P. 9-10
Olsen, B. (2013). An Archeology of Matter. How Matter Matters, Objects, Artifacts and Materiality in Organization Studies. University Press Scholarship Online. P. 6
Olsen, B. (2013). An Archeology of Matter. How Matter Matters, Objects, Artifacts and Materiality in Organization Studies. University Press Scholarship Online. P. 7
Olsen, B. (2013). An Archeology of Matter. How Matter Matters, Objects, Artifacts and Materiality in Organization Studies. University Press Scholarship Online. P. 11
Petursdottir, Þ. (2013). Concrete matters: Ruins of modernity and the things called heritage. Norway: Department of Archaeology and Social Anthropology, University of Tromsø. P. 34
Petursdottir, Þ. (2013). Concrete matters: Ruins of modernity and the things called heritage. Norway: Department of Archaeology and Social Anthropology, University of Tromsø. P. 37
Martínez, F. (2018). Remains of the Soviet Past in Estonia: An Anthropology of Forgetting, Repair and Urban Traces. London: UCL Press.
Martínez, F. (2018). Remains of the Soviet Past in Estonia: An Anthropology of Forgetting, Repair and Urban Traces. London: UCL Press.
Vliet, W. (2016). The Future of Relics from a Military Past. Netherlands: University of Groningen.
Krivy, M. (2021). “Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland” or “Digital Ecosystem”? Postsocialist Ecological Imaginaries in Tallinn, Estonia. Cambridge, Tallinn: Geoforum.
Aravot, I. (1984). Narrative-Myth and Urban Design. Taylor & Francis, Ltd. P. 79-91
Man’s love for taming the wild character of its surroundings is perhaps also inherently visible in the ‘bourgeois attitude’ of academia towards all things dirty, ruined, out of place and chaotic. Thus, in the pursuit of understanding things, even though they are welcomed back, they undergo a discursive process of classification and characterization. Perhaps, the most striking rationale behind the gradual erasure of things from the memory of twentieth century conscience can be identified within the roots of modern thinking.2
Whether it is Immanuel Kant asserting how things-in-itself can only be experienced through our own thinking and reason; and cannot be encountered with their innateness; or Lefebvre’s references to Marxian theory of commodities to postulate that things hide social relations; for philosophers of twentieth century; material in modern world became a hallmark for representing an alienated and rather inauthentic world.3 Things were called dangerous with their deceptive meanings; with signs producing and emanating forces of power, production and social abstraction. The stigmatization of materials, at hand of subjectification and reason, led to a negative perception of materialism; one that reiterated the relation of people with materials to be wrong, abstract and unreal.
Another encroachment on the emanant meaning of materials is through the view that ‘entities are produced in relations’. Like a petrol station is only useful if there is a road right next to it.4 This non-reconcilable need of the modern urban living to be connected and contextual, leaves no room for things out of context, things out of place, vague terrains and ‘otherized’ spaces to be left as they are.
As discussed above, even though the modern take on approaching material is biased in the philosophical tradition; one can argue that the materials have taken on an autonomous identity and are now being viewed outside the traditional disciplines. It is the things that dictate social behavior patterns and individual cognitive perceptions now. Bruno Latour argues on this as:
“If religion, art and styles are necessary to “reflect,” “reify,” “materialize,” “embody” society—to use some of the social theorists’ favorite verbs—then are objects, not, in the end, its co-producers? Is not society built literally—not metaphorically—of gods, machines, sciences, arts and styles? … Maybe social scientists have simply forgotten that before projecting itself on to things society has to be made, built, constructed? And out of what material could it be built if not out of nonsocial, nonhuman resources?”(Latour, 1993: 54) 5
One cannot argue against how objects and materials formulate our cognitive memories, and how our experience of reality is largely embellished by our exposure to familiar, predictable and repetitive engagement with materials. The in-placeness of things necessitates the structure of our lives. Throughout the course of human history, the notion of stability has always been defined to be ‘a normal state of things’. This normal state of things resonates with social order, durability and usability. As Heidegger argues over the notion of belongingness in his lectures on dwelling, things in their located place play an important role in evoking familiarity and situatedness for the dwellers.6 It is only when the order of things becomes disturbed as a consequence of some catastrophe, like famine or war; the existential importance of things become eminent.
However, even with this approach, the return to things has been rather selective. It brings about a whole new debate about the ‘rules’ about which things need to be brought back, and which needs to be dumped or consciously ignored; i.e., the discourse of defining heritage against waste. This also brings about the whole new debate about the unwanted material of the past that weighs heavily on some societies than others.
Like in the case of post-Soviet societies, the sheer abundance of the intense stroke of material legacy is not easy to get rid of. Does this abundance of material legacy also guide and persist a Soviet mentality? As Bjørnar Olsen argues, does concrete material reality also conditions people’s lives, a Soviet mentality, an obedient attitude? 7
As argued earlier, the objective material culture is often prejudiced in favor of subjective human experience. The heritage discourse also undergoes the process of inherent ‘value making’ that deem them significant.8 Meant to promote western-elite values, the discourse of heritage, just like museums, is too narrow-sighted. It responds to the agenda of showing monumental and aesthetically pleasing, and ignores the rest. Just like the disowning of materials in the wake of modernization, heritage studies also engage in the ‘intangible’ representations of social values that the ‘tangible’ reminders of the past reflect. But the world of materials, ‘the tangibles’ do not have any imperative of their own. Here, the so-called value of traditional discipline of heritage is based on societal perceptions, human attachment, historical identity and a sense of belongingness.
Here, one might argue, whether or not the sense of belongingness of materials to a place is important? Today’s presumed waste might be turned into something valuable in the future. So how can one define a rigid set of rules for heritage? What is heritage exactly? It is important to not forget the significance of the life of materials as an entity on its own, and to understand that the ‘generative’ process of ageing of materials unveils the layers of society. In that respect, can the process of ageing and ruining also be deemed as heritage? As Þora Petursdottir argues in his essay ‘Concrete matters: Ruins of modernity and the things called heritage’,
“While a rather acceptable definition, the rarely considered reality is that things or heritage is passed on to the future whether we like it or not, whether we manage it or not.” 9
In the context of Estonia, a post-Soviet country, the bitter memory of the Soviet regime has been quite fresh in the first generation after the country’s independence. The ethnographic research postulates that the deliberate degradation of Soviet infrastructure is a form of revolt at the hands of post-Soviet nationalism.10 The dilapidated condition of the material evidence suggests a past that is not worthy to be remembered, but does neglecting something also suggests that it is forgotten or it vanishes, especially with the context of massive material remains in post-Soviet societies?11 There is a close connection of politics and power between post-socialist reforms and remains of the Soviet world, that is largely dictated by political motives, despite the inheritance of materials, ideas and practices from the past regime.
In the context of Estonia, there has been a stark generational shift in their behavior towards Soviet material remains. One cannot deny that inheritances that do not find any means for continuation still somehow persist as a constant reminder of their presence. The conscious effort to dematerialize the past identities and enforced act of forgetting the previous regime has been changed. The younger generation is more open to DIY strategies to accept, re-appropriate and acknowledge the huge socialist stroke in their land. The 2013 Tallinn Architecture Biennale also highlighted the need for a change in attitude of people to deal with historical architecture and material remains, those that considerably shaped much of urban and rural environments in Eastern Europe.
Many seeds of today’s spatial syntax, as they have evolved now, have been planted in socialist period. If one is to argue that the manifest of ‘now’ is from the seeds of ‘then’, where does one categorize heritage?
In the case of Paljassaare, an ex-military zone in the north of Tallinn, heritage takes on a different level. Many of the ex-military zones in the northern periphery of Estonia have now been declared nature’s reserves under Natura 2000. The sanctuary of birds in these areas is because of military presence in these areas.12 Filled with remnants of military material remains, the google search on Paljassaare shows this area to be biodiverse, green and ‘untouched’.
One can sense negligence of material remains in this area to be a form of revolt against the Soviet military remains. In his paper on ecological imaginaries in Tallinn, Maros Krivy discusses the global image Estonia portrays:
“A country where “clean and untouched nature co-exists with the world’s most digitally advanced society” (Brand Estonia, 2017) was one among many similar slogans that would pop up on the delegates’ devices.” 13
Such ‘intentional’ ecologies of the present are politically infused ‘imaginaries’ against the unintentional ‘realities’ of the past, those that are quite visible once one takes a tour to Paljassaare.
Filled with military remnants, this work tries to engage with Paljassaare through the lens of myth, imagination and iconoclasm. Dealing with the theme of cause and effect, the research questions the discourse of materials and heritage through an abstract narration, using language and film as a tool to create a sense of surreality, as is felt within these remnants all over Paljassaare. Through an abstract narration, an attempt has been made to expose the unsaid and unaccepted realities in a post-Soviet world; that tries to draw connections between the events of the past and how that shapes the realities of the present; and how it is being ignored for the envisioned future of the Peninsula. It poses some important questions, the answers to which are probably unknown and unknowable. Questions of drawing farfetched yet undeniable cause and their effects:
Would there be a Paljassaare if there were no gun fires invented?
Would Paljassaare be a peninsula if there was no Russo-Japanese war?
Would there be birds here if there was no Soviet military?
Isn’t everything of the past not heritage? Or is it to be selected as to what is to be remembered and what is not? Can it be possible?
Has it been possible so far within the sticky and stubborn material reality of post-Soviet societies?
The poetic memoir engages the listener to delve into the imaginative art of storytelling, to immerse oneself into this mythical and imaginative zone at the edge of city dweller’s imagination; to think of a cave with treasures, to think of gods and demons, and to envision a city with the conscience of an ancient city dweller. Genius Loci or spirit of the space is the guardian spirit of a space. It becomes visible to the visitor as a totalitarian, unspeakable yet recognizable experience. It helped the ancient man to create stories of the space so in order to make sense of it with definite characters.14 The aim of opting for mythical imaginaries as a medium is to preserve the fragmentation and disintegration of the authentic experience of the space, that is soon going vanish at hands of neo-liberal developments in Paljassaare.
The process of engaging with the site evolved from orating a poem in a military watch tower to writing object memoirs under the theme of ‘military vs nature’ & ‘nature as heritage’. (on right)
For the final outcome, a film screened in a Soviet military bunker, summarizes the entire research in an abstract and poetic narration, guided with surreal military material remnants in Paljassaare. Taking inspiration from Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Stalker, the technique of iconoclasm to devise new imaginaries and meanings for these material remnants is explored. The way one handles the camera changes everything, it invites us to create our own perceptions of what is seen, how it is conveyed and how it invites the viewer to delve into the world of myth. Just like Estonia depicts ‘ecological imaginaries’ in its political narrative, the film tries to break down the perception of materials using the medium of camera and film to ‘create new post-socialist material imaginaries’ in Paljassaare.
References
Olsen, B. (2013). An Archeology of Matter. How Matter Matters, Objects, Artifacts and Materiality in Organization Studies. University Press Scholarship Online. P. 1
Olsen, B. (2013). An Archeology of Matter. How Matter Matters, Objects, Artifacts and Materiality in Organization Studies. University Press Scholarship Online. P. 2
Olsen, B. (2013). An Archeology of Matter. How Matter Matters, Objects, Artifacts and Materiality in Organization Studies. University Press Scholarship Online. P. 3-4
Ouzman, S. (2006). The Beauty of Letting Go: Fragmentary Museums & Archeologies of Archive. Oxford. P. 9-10
Olsen, B. (2013). An Archeology of Matter. How Matter Matters, Objects, Artifacts and Materiality in Organization Studies. University Press Scholarship Online. P. 6
Olsen, B. (2013). An Archeology of Matter. How Matter Matters, Objects, Artifacts and Materiality in Organization Studies. University Press Scholarship Online. P. 7
Olsen, B. (2013). An Archeology of Matter. How Matter Matters, Objects, Artifacts and Materiality in Organization Studies. University Press Scholarship Online. P. 11
Petursdottir, Þ. (2013). Concrete matters: Ruins of modernity and the things called heritage. Norway: Department of Archaeology and Social Anthropology, University of Tromsø. P. 34
Petursdottir, Þ. (2013). Concrete matters: Ruins of modernity and the things called heritage. Norway: Department of Archaeology and Social Anthropology, University of Tromsø. P. 37
Martínez, F. (2018). Remains of the Soviet Past in Estonia: An Anthropology of Forgetting, Repair and Urban Traces. London: UCL Press.
Martínez, F. (2018). Remains of the Soviet Past in Estonia: An Anthropology of Forgetting, Repair and Urban Traces. London: UCL Press.
Vliet, W. (2016). The Future of Relics from a Military Past. Netherlands: University of Groningen.
Krivy, M. (2021). “Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland” or “Digital Ecosystem”? Postsocialist Ecological Imaginaries in Tallinn, Estonia. Cambridge, Tallinn: Geoforum.
Aravot, I. (1984). Narrative-Myth and Urban Design. Taylor & Francis, Ltd. P. 79-91
Object Memoirs:
I have been blown away,
with gunpowder and cannon batteries,
to so many people & places,
I now think I must be sunlight.
-Air of the Bird’s Sanctuary
I have been altered by so many humans,
I have forgotten my true form,
Or perhaps also my true function.
-‘Island-turned-Peninsula’
In the reds of my autumn’s crimson,
perhaps there still is a component
of gunpowder and echoes of control.
-Imprints of Red Army in Nature
I have been carrying,
the sweet melody of birds with me,
as I rustle through the dying autumn winds.
-Birds Sanctuary
Empty vessels make the most sounds,
like guns with gunshots;
it’s funny that after some time,
all of the empty vessels,
that is this land,
was filled with melodies;
symphonies sung by the birds.
–Battery at Natura 2000
Look, I, a maple, is a delusion,
I might look pure,
but I too have been infiltered,
I carry within my molecules,
Legacy of sulfur, carbon
and potassium nitrate,
that still lingers in the air,
And that tends to make me pretty.
–The Soviet Army and its Gunpowder
In science, they say that when two things merge,
They disappear, to give birth to something else.
Like hydrogen merging with oxygen
to make water.
A heroic sacrifice.
How beautiful.
I think, I have been merged
with this land and man,
To give birth to the nature and birds,
And leaves so many.
-In between paradoxes military and nature
Maybe it all goes back to when I,
a maple, was born & raised,
Amidst the military,
its structures and summer haze,
Or maybe it all goes back
to the constructs of socialism & capitalism,
Or even goes back to when
the last Tsar of Russia was executed,
Or even back to when
the first king stepped to the throne,
Or perhaps, even back to when
time came into being.
-Its all connected
I have been blown away,
with gunpowder and cannon batteries,
to so many people & places,
I now think I must be sunlight.
-Air of the Bird’s Sanctuary
I have been altered by so many humans,
I have forgotten my true form,
Or perhaps also my true function.
-‘Island-turned-Peninsula’
In the reds of my autumn’s crimson,
perhaps there still is a component
of gunpowder and echoes of control.
-Imprints of Red Army in Nature
I have been carrying,
the sweet melody of birds with me,
as I rustle through the dying autumn winds.
-Birds Sanctuary
Empty vessels make the most sounds,
like guns with gunshots;
it’s funny that after some time,
all of the empty vessels,
that is this land,
was filled with melodies;
symphonies sung by the birds.
–Battery at Natura 2000
Look, I, a maple, is a delusion,
I might look pure,
but I too have been infiltered,
I carry within my molecules,
Legacy of sulfur, carbon
and potassium nitrate,
that still lingers in the air,
And that tends to make me pretty.
–The Soviet Army and its Gunpowder
In science, they say that when two things merge,
They disappear, to give birth to something else.
Like hydrogen merging with oxygen
to make water.
A heroic sacrifice.
How beautiful.
I think, I have been merged
with this land and man,
To give birth to the nature and birds,
And leaves so many.
-In between paradoxes military and nature
Maybe it all goes back to when I,
a maple, was born & raised,
Amidst the military,
its structures and summer haze,
Or maybe it all goes back
to the constructs of socialism & capitalism,
Or even goes back to when
the last Tsar of Russia was executed,
Or even back to when
the first king stepped to the throne,
Or perhaps, even back to when
time came into being.
-Its all connected
