Travelling by Jonathan Watkins
This is an excerpt taken from a text written by Jonathan Watkins, Director of Ikon Gallery. The full text can be found in Yva Jung’s catalogue “Mooning Monday”.
I travel a lot, and so does Yva Jung.
I am in a hotel room as I write this, in far north of Norway, where four years ago Jung was part of group of artists, writers and musicians selected by The Arctic Circle Residency. It is an ideal place to think about travelling and what it means, for this is Sami country, a place suffused with nomadic culture.
The hotel has a small library including a book of Sami proverbs, Time Is A Ship That Never Casts Anchor. I am leafing through the pages and quickly find some un-home-spun inspiration, such as “It is better to be on a journey than to stay put at one place” and “A flying bird will always find something, a bird that only stays home will find nothing.”
As a preface to The Arctic is Not Too Far From Her(e), a book published as a result of her northern adventure, Jung quotes Jesus’ instructions to his twelve disciples from Luke, chapter 9: “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor money; and do not have two tunics.” More recently, she starts a letter, published here, in the same vein:
You are on your journey; you are on your way.
You move, come and go but never arrive.
You don’t want to.
You move and look.
…
