Today marks exactly 4 weeks since I got on a plane to leave
Los Angeles! I don’t even understand how time is going by so fast, and it makes
me anxious. I feel like there is so much left to do in such little time. If an entire
month can go by this quickly, the next four months seem like nothing. Regardless, a lot has happened so far,
and it all started off with a short trip in Europe with Tara. It's weird to look
back our stay in Europe after being in Ghana for about a
couple weeks. Feels as if I was never even there. I think it's because we were constantly on the move while in Europe, always moving from
one place to the next from Amsterdam to Belgium, Bruges, and finally Paris. We never got to settle into any one place and just kept floating through these cities, which wasn’t necessarily a
bad thing. Although I wish we had more time to really get acquainted with these
places, we still found happiness in meeting other travelers and in spontaneous nights out. My happiest moment in
Europe was actually the very first day of the trip.
Our first stop was the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. When we entered
the museum, I was confused by these large yellow posters that looked like
post-its and couldn’t understand what they were for until we came across this
one in the grand hall.
British writers and philosophers Alain de Botton
and John Armstrong had installed a project last April to show the therapeutic
effect art can have and the answers art can provide for big life questions.
These captioned posters sometimes shared anecdotes, suggested solutions to problems,
or just gave a few words of wisdom. The Rijksmuseum website says: "The exhibition Art is Therapy, however, wants to questions what the purpose of art is and highlight the threrapeutic effect that art has on visitors who simply look at art and enjoy. As far as the British philosophers are concerned, the focus should be less on where an object comes from and who made it, and more on what it can do for the museum visitor in terms of issues that concern us all: love & relationships, work, status, memory, and mortality."
With any museum I go to, I always feel somehow recalibrated afterwards.
Now, I think I can understand the reason why. Looking at paintings and
sculptures from centuries past teaches a lot about history, but I find myself
having to search for the things that are relevant to myself in the works so that I can relate to something so far off from my own life. I guess what I’m trying to
say is that I enjoy looking at art because it makes me unconsciously look for
myself in the art, so I leave a museum feeling rebalanced. The
Rijksmuseum had already done that for me, and it made such a huge difference. I
was able to appreciate the art on a whole new level.
The ‘Art is Therapy’
project resonated with me so much because I'm always expected to
justify studying dance both academically and artistically. I’ve learned to
always expect questions like: ‘What can you even do with a dance degree?’ ‘What
do you learn about in an academic dance class?’ One time I was asked, ‘Why do
you go to Swarthmore if you want to dance?’ Even in articles and journals I
read for class, scholars will often start off by explaining why dance as an
academic field is important, or why their particular area of research should be
taken seriously. I usually don’t even know how to
answer the questions people ask me, and most of the times I don’t want to
answer them anyway because I feel like when I answer, I am consenting to the
undertones of those questions- that dance is less legitimate than any other
major.
These frustrations were even more intensified when I started
to tell people that I was planning on traveling to Ghana to study African dance. This time, questions
and comments went something like: ‘But don’t you want to go to Europe instead?’
‘Study African dance? People do that?’ ‘Does Ghana even have good schools?’ It
got really hard not to let this get to my head after a while, and I started to
get really nervous before flying out of the US.
These posters at the Rijks helped put my worries to rest. After two years of second guessing myself while at Swarthmore, I was reminded exactly why I still wanted to dance and why I decided to come to Ghana in the first place. The posters explained ways in which art commented
on politics, sex, money, memory, and more. They pointed out that art is a part of political
science, philosophy, economics, history, math, literature, science, etc, and most importantly
that art is part of the human condition. I left the museum feeling reassured that I was doing the
right thing. It was a great way to start off my abroad experience, and for the
rest of our time in Europe, I kept seeing ways in which museums, monuments, and
cathedrals were all therapeutic in their own ways.
Here are some more happy things you should look for if you
are ever in these places:
Amsterdam: The
canals are stunning, and you can see so much of the city by water. Tara and I
did a cruise as the sun was setting.
Belgium: Definitely
hit up Delirium Café. This pub has over 2,000 types of beer. Our favorite was
definitely the cactus beer. The pub right across the street had some amazing
musicians playing live music.
Bruges: All of the chocolate shops in this town sell these. Some get pretty detailed.
Paris: Visit the Saint Chapelle to see some of the most beautiful stained glass windows, and then have a pork belly burger at a restaurant called the Loup- my favorite meal while in Europe. For dessert, macaroons from Laduree are all the hype, but I personally enjoyed the ones from Pierre Herme more.
