Bikka Ora Artist

Caravan - 7 nights is a Wellington based micro residency in a bicycle powered teardrop caravan. Various artists, poets and writers were invited to stay a night in the caravan in the artists backyard. Each person was invited to share their impressions.

A safe space.

Quiet. 

Safety abounds. I'm in nature.

I can feel the coldness of the air. Is this how insects feel every night when their kingdom becomes alive?

A still night in Wellington. No wind. Some insects breathing.  

I think of Nepal, the orchestra of insects singing. 

I went back in Nepal (June 2017), to visit my Nepalese family, who I stayed with in 2011 when I was working at a development agency. That first night, I woke up to the deafening sound of insects singing, like a symphony. It was trans-formative/transcendental. Our ears, along with other sensory devices are so shy from "natural sound", or all "non-human-intervened" sounds - you get what I'm trying to say. But the sound of no human intervention is...utterly lovable. 

Rose quartz. Wine. Treasured talks with Rebecca. How can one truly connect with another? 

Absolute comfort in the caravan. It is amazing. Monastery stays, all the travels in developing countries. 

The unity of humanity. The similarities. The changing lights. Would I dream tonight? If so, may it be blissful to all beings in all realms. 

Morning thoughts in blurry vision.

Struck by how beautiful it is, its craftsmanship. So at easy with the light blue window. Also birds singing and cicadas. Gentle breeze. You do pause to observe your surroundings.

Routinized life, eg your work, seems to go away without much reflection. A legit time thief. Feels wasteful sometimes. Therefore, it is essential to build a routine that is meaningful even when on autopilot.

Thank you for this opportunity to reflect and relax. If this caravan can be seen as your Action Research project...I'd like to have my entire life to be an Action Research project...

It's windy outside and I breathe on the windows. My dragon's breath blurs the trees and clouds the sky. The multi-coloured candles warm my face and the air curls through the dreamcatcher.

The candles turn blue and yellow at once and I think of Life Aquatic and the song Let me tell you about my boat, by Mark Mothersbaugh. It's my favourite piece on the soundtrack. It reminds me of: the morning before everyone else is awake, swimming in the ocean, the feeling of being in bed with the sun dappling your legs, toasted sunflower seeds, running barefoot on grass, freezing cold rivers.

The caravan is a submarine. You don't know what is in the ocean. It surrounds you, moves you, but in it you are free... and light. You let the current lift you, propel you, because in this submarine you know you are safe.

In the night I had short moments of waking up. Once, I heard a cat meow and once, I looked out the window to see the brightest star.

The beams along the top of the caravan scale its back like the beam in a marae being thought of as the backbone of a fish. I look at the hand-painted blue and curves meeting angles. The caravan feels very much a part of the nature around it. In the night, I slept on my right-hand side and could only see the sky. It felt like I could have been anywhere, like I was floating above the world.

“enchanting” that was certainly my first thoughts on seeing just how super cute Rebecca’s caravan is. And enchanting in that it gave a magic quality to the whole front garden and myself as a guest in this garden. The scale of everything seemed to shift in relation to the caravan – I felt a mix of being tall and tiny and the little lemon tree and the furniture outside the caravan also seemed to be both huge and miniature depending on how one looked at it in relation to the caravan.

Enchantment -that is so vital.

Arriving before dark I drank delicious green tea out of a very lovely little white cup cooked up in front of the caravan on a very fast gas cooker.

Darkness. And then I climbed into the caravan and it felt so good.

Beautifully constructed and the interior was full of small details such as the tiny ‘key’ on a string to close the door with and the slits for air vents at one end and the curved windows with pale blue edges and curved wooden shelves. White sheets and bedding. Peaceful.

Darkness. And then I climbed into the caravan and it felt so good.

Beautifully constructed and the interior was full of small details such as the tiny ‘key’ on a string to close the door with and the slits for air vents at one end and the curved windows with pale blue edges and curved wooden shelves. White sheets and bedding. Peaceful.

It was the best place to read.  

Mosquitos buzzed outside but they couldn’t come in.

Kaka called.

In the dark reading, cocooned and warm inside the caravan with the small light going, I felt so content.

I did wake up a few times in the night but I always do, it was simply good fun waking up in the caravan. Stars sparkled.

In the early morning the windows were all huffed up with my bodies warmth. I slipped out of the caravan and the garden and carried a bit of the magic home.

It’s interesting to consider what I think a stay in the caravan might “be” having seen the artwork through so many stages—via discussions, supply purchasing, stages of construction—and seeing (in a very privileged but not entirely un-stressful way) the process unfolding. In any event what one expects and what one experiences are always divergent.

One might think this process—or viewing it along the way that is—would demystify and unravel the complex specificity of this artwork but I would say no—but even if this were the case, I thrive on “inside” views—pun intended—of artworks if I can obtain them. Although for someone interested in performative, interactive, and live art I am often lamentably un- participatory.

I will make some more notes once inside!

The detailing inside is captivating—along with the fact I note that it seems much larger (and more comfortable) than I had expected—it’s very intriguing as a full-fledged structure/sculpture: not a tent/not a tiny house/not a shed—it has the whiff of something cozy with the feel of something older, not quite remembered—as if a dream or staying in an actual trailer/caravan, but this one is much more tailored/suited to its occupants.

I woke up at 1:30 AM—not the caravan’s fault, my own, as I never sleep through the night (asthma) but felt pleased to sit up, step outside, sit in the sling chair and look up at the stars. How lucky am I? I thought—what a privilege to be in this place, on this spot, having this experience. Feelings of great joy.

Easy to return to sleep until c. 7:00 AM as so content and comfortable in the caravan—I think one of the marvelous aspects of the caravan is, yes, its “self-containment” such that despite breeze blowing through (intentional) vents and cracks, it was warm and dry—just a bit of condensation on windows from my warm breaths. But, moreover it becomes in an altogether generous way “a room of one’s own,” to borrow Virginia Woolf’s phrase. That is, a space to think, write, meditate, (re-)consider things.

Again—although I am a male writer who considers himself a feminist—I think that this points directly back to the politics of crafting this space—a way to create an alternative, reimagined, feminist small-scale space by a woman artist, independently from any institutional structures of support.

As the sun comes out and infiltrates the interior of the caravan, a beautiful glow ensues. Peering out at the garden, dog nestled between my feet, sun hitting my cheek, I feel warm inside as well.

Rebecca: Would you like to stay on Friday night?

Me: Is is waterproof?

Rebecca: The weather forecast is good.

[Hmmmmm]

Me: ok then.

[it rained on my visit]