The high clouds of the early morning were moving away. The day promised to become sunny. A stiff wind was blowing through the city when I started running.
What do you perceive when you move at running pace? What stays with you? How do you catch those particular moments, those images, those small things that suddenly become important? And what happens to you while running through them? What kind of story do they become?
I have started calling my runs photo safaris. A particular form of Walking as Research Practice — only faster.
This morning: the Billingen loop. I shared it with Lilo and Vládmir. They more or less did the same route on their e-bikes. I am curious what they have brought back. Which images. Which encounters. Which traces. The same landscape, perhaps. But for sure not the same experience. And so the run becomes a shared experience without us actually having been together.
Framing landscape. This theme of my walks of „Footnotes for … Skövde“, suddenly appeared again at the freestanding hall structure in Billingen.
But first the run had led me out of the city. Passing an iconic red Swedish house, later on a monumental sculpture. Across the mine. Into the forest.
And then I left the path. Why did I think it would be a good idea to take a shortcut? Dense undergrowth. Branches, bushes, stumbling, pushing through.
And then — the Silver Lake. Suddenly. The landscape opened. It was as if a flat eye was lying there in front of me, looking up at the sky.
The wind, already much weaker on the narrow forest tracks, had completely disappeared when I reached the water. Silence. Stillness. And something almost magical came over me. The water was catching the morning light, silver, mirroring.
For me, this body of water, officially known as Hållsdammen, reflecting the morning sun, is simply the Silver Lake. Perhaps a place does not need its official name. Perhaps the name comes from the way you encounter it. The way it opens. The way it looks back at you.
