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On working while
traveling
and temporary desks
(scroll down for
news and events!)
This letter was initially supposed to go out on the last day of April, but
meeting the self-imposed deadline once again proved to be challenging.
The past month was an eventful one for XP: a lunch date with .zip, a gardening
day, a Projecting Life session lead by Gijs en Elliott and two of Emma’s
Theme-work events, all within basically one week. Many of us traveled in and
out of the country throughout the rest of it. In fact we all ended the month
out of office studio; 5/6 of the group spent the week in
Fontainebleau and 1/6 (me, Kirsten) in Genova and Rome.
While the others were hanging off rocks, I’ve been hanging around cafes
finishing my taxes, bashing out deliverables for a commission and writing this
newsletter. Working while traveling, like climbing, can be fun yet tricky — a
balancing act of sorts. Although there’s no risk of physical injury, there are
the risks of either not getting your work done or not enjoying your trip if you
lose your balance by focusing too much on one or the other (or the absolute
worst: nothing gets done or is enjoyed). I guess you could replace “trip” by
“life” and the issue is the same whether you are traveling or at home, and
seems to be one I keep returning to.
There are roughly two reasons why you would decide to work on a trip: either
you are traveling for the purpose of work (working on-site, doing a
residency) or you are traveling while there is work to do (out of
desire or obligation). Sometimes these two blur a bit in my mind, whenever I
get tempted by the idea that the unsteadiness of a trip can
potentially help me stumble upon new insights or force me to tread
more nimbly within that window of time at my temporary desk.
Since, as I mentioned, many of us have had the privilege of going on trips
either for or despite work recently, or alternatively seem to also appreciate
leaving the steady XP desk for a change of scene/mode, I have given my
studio-mates and myself the task to reflect upon our temporary workstations and
see if they offered any insight into our desk needs:
The first temporary desk that came to mind was one that Kirsten and I shared
whilst visiting our friends at Robida for some Coding In Situ. We
worked almost everyday in Vida and Aljaž’s kitchen at their lovely round table.
From there, we watched the sky outside change from blue to grey to white to
grey and back to blue. It rained a lot. So on the final day, when the sun
finally emerged, I sat out on the red bench on their balcony and listened to
the sounds of the valley whilst I coded. Whilst I sat there, Blaso gave me a
glass of wine before our final lunch together before leaving. This “desk” felt
like exactly where I needed to be at that moment.
I have a tendency to embed myself in routine: having a set spot that I can
reliably return to again and again to get stuff done. But this temp-desk got me
thinking about what I need and when I need it and that, perhaps, my desk
shouldn’t always be about getting things done. Maybe my desk should be more
about reminding me of all that exists outside of the desk/work, rather than
isolating me within it.
Ben on a red bench with a glass of
red wine
During the installation of the exhibition “Your Ghosts are Mine” at the Venice
biennale a couple of weeks ago we set up a temporary desk tucked in a dark
corner of one of the exhibition rooms. These temporary workspaces within
exhibition spaces caught my attention a while ago arriving on the site of an
exhibition I had designed back in 2016. The builders themselves are pros at
this. I arrived surprised to find a desk and a mini workshop set up on-site.
They had laid claim to this space but over the next few days they would be
working to transform it into something else. They were their own parasite
changing their host until they were no longer welcome. You can also catch a
glimpse of this in the back of a well organised van (a workshop on wheels) or
the cabins parked on the site of the road (mainly in the Netherlands which
function as mobile lunch rooms for the builders). Back in Venice we had a grey
plastic foldable table and chairs which became our base. The chairs were too
low and at some point the looping sounds of the films drove us crazy like a
whirring ventilator that you don’t realise has infiltrated your brain until
suddenly you are overwhelmed. But this doesn’t matter. These set ups are about
location location location. You are now a tiny designer sitting inside the 3D
model that you had been digitally immersed in for the past months. When the
exhibition finally opened and the desk was tidied away into the storage room
and the guests were arriving, that spot was no longer ours. I didn’t even feel
like I could use the toilet space which I knew was behind the storage doors, it
was no longer a workspace it was an exhibition. It’s fascinating that just
these two pieces of furniture can give you a sense of belonging to a place.
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This desk emerged on the balcony of the house in Spain me and my family stayed
at. They went for a walk while I stayed behind to get some work done. It was
sunny, but also extremely windy, so I sat down as low as possible. My mum added
the sunhat and the blanket and I felt like a child on the beach, too focused on
my sandcastle/screen to notice her putting sunscreen on my face. Guess my
essential (desk) needs are feeling warm and safe and loved 👩🏻🍼🌞
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