I’m in the train to Oberhausen. I am seated in the opposite direction to which the train is heading. Usually I don’t like sitting in the opposite direction to which the train is going, but this time I don’t mind it so much.

 

A beautiful train conductor passes.

 

She seems to be fluent in the 3 main languages being used aboard this train: Dutch, English and German. She checks my NS Highspeed print-out ticket and says “dank u wel”. As she walks off she places a brochure of the DB, the German trains service, on the empty seat beside me. On the cover of the brochure there is an advertisement for a new photography exhibition in Dusseldorf saying the following:

 

“Der Rote Bulli

 

Stephen Shore und die Neue Dusseldorfer Fotografie.”

 

I look at the ad and wonder to myself a few things:

 

Why is Stephen Shore coupled up with the new Dusseldorfer school of photography? What is in fact the Neue Dusseldorfer fotografie? And why the hell are they called Dusseldorfer and not Dusseldorf or photography from Dusseldorf?

 

What gives those ‘new’ Dusseldorfers the right to be called Dusseldorfers and not just simply be announced by their names like Stephen Shore is announced? Are they some kind of photography band - The Dusseldorfers? Do they all wear the same uniform when they go out with their cameras and have a company car with the logo of the Neue Dusseldorfer photography on it?

 

Am I looking at another silent operation of art and photography history intertwined with the canonizing and hegemonic art world? Is this an attempt to reconcile with the past? Is Stephen Shore still alive? Does he still use his T.C.? Is he married to a rich German lady living in Dusseldorf and that is why he has an exhibition with the new Dusseldorfers? All these things I do not know. The only thing this advertisement is announcing to me before I even stepped into the train is that there is a kind of photography that has a Dusseldorfer quality to it and that now there is a new Dusseldorfer photography, different from the old Dusseldorfer photography and that now the new Dusseldorfers are teaming up with a guy called Stephen Shore for a new exhibition in Dusseldorf. I would prefer to call them all Dussel-dwarfs : The new Dussel-dwarfer photography. I imagine them all dressed up in white and blue dwarf-like uniforms when they go out to the fields of the Ruhr to photograph.

 

 

 

–

 

We just came back from our first day of the trip. It was wonderful! I enjoyed it very much. We criss-crossed a large part of the surrounding area of Essen today. The nice thing about it was that it was completely a natural way of moving in a city-space. We started in the middle of nowhere in a train station I never heard of and started walking our way through the nature and built environment without bothering about the psychological borders of the spaces we encountered on our way. Our wonderful guide Boris hopped naturally from a typical Ruhrgebiet neighborhood onto a railway, leading to a cross road, onto the top of a hill, into a local cafe, towards a bike ride and so on. In the evening we had a pleasurable dinner at Zeche Zollverein and now we are back in our accommodation at the top of the water tower at Oberhausen train station.

 

During one of the stops we had on top of a large hill Boris said a sentence that remained in my mind: “The Ruhr is full of distorted images (such as an artificial permanent wave tourist-attraction in which visitors can ski on while in the background the heavy industry of the Ruhr is blasting away) but these distorted images are in fact the only thing that exists of the region - if you choose to disregard these alienating images it’s not really fun or in fact there is nothing else besides or behind it in a way. You either accept these distorted images of the region or you are left without any perception of the region at all. The only sense of reality possible is a distorted one.”

 

I took a lot of photographs and enjoyed being back in the Ruhr. Somehow it feels like another home to me, which is nice. Boris was interested in hearing how I got to visit the area. I told him about the coincidence of me and Sander having a beer in The Hague two years ago and how we decided spontaneously to hit the road and visit The Ruhr without any fixed plans or goal. He was curious to hear more so I told him the rest of the tale which he found fascinating.

 

Now I go to sleep. I’m completely drunk and my feet need some rest before tomorrow.

 

 

It’s 7 in the morning.

 

I just woke up and had a shower. The toilet wasn’t working, said one of the other guests of the water tower hotel. I didn’t sleep so good during the night. I don’t know why. I was quite exhausted after the first day so I should have fallen immediately asleep. Perhaps the pillow was a bit too big or the bed too small.

 

Anyway, now I am awake. I’m looking forward for the second day of the expedition. We will start the day in a market in Essen. I look outside of the window and see the train station of Oberhausen. Its nice sleeping near the train tracks. It gives a certain feeling of constant movement. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t sleep.

 

In the room I am sitting in, there is an art piece made by some Dutch artist that includes something that looks like a satellite, a mobile phone, a hand made cd player, a cd saying Chopwood and an emptied disco ball. All of this is situated within a functional wooden frame, giving a kind of cube within a cube feeling to the visitor.

 

15.9.10

 

It’s morning. I’m up. I’m sick. At least yesterday I was. We’re in Dortmund.

 

I think I got salmonella from something I ate or drank. The night’s sleep helped me to get my fever down a bit. I still feel a bit weak but I hope that during the day that will become better with some fresh air and something to drink.

 

One of the organizers comes in the room. He asks how I’m doing. I said that now I feel better but that last night was hell. He tells me to be at a quarter past eight downstairs. It’s nice that he asked me how I’m doing. The other guy in the apartment also asks. I explain to him that I felt really bad and thought I was going to die. I inform him as well that I’m doing better and I continue to pack my bag for the day.

 

As I was worrying last night if I am going to die in Dortmund, in the other room there was a presentation by a young German guy claiming to be a historian and art historian. According to his story he was also (besides being an historian and art historian) the owner of several lands in the Ruhr and was offering the Dutch delegation to buy some pieces of the Ruhr from him. He kept on shouting ‘Sell, Sell, Sell!’ while I was in the other room wondering whether or not I was going to die in Dortmund. After the 2 hour persuasion that seemed like a chapter in The Dragons Den, some business cards were exchanged and half promises made.

 

After the presentation we left back to the apartments in our Dortmund location and I immediately passed out on one of the beds.

 

 

We’re back in Oberhausen central station. After 2 days in an extremely insignificant place called Marl. We came by invitation of the city hall of Marl to solve the problem addressed by by the citizens of Marl that there isn’t enough urbanity in the city center. Someone up there in the city hall building had the idea that a group of Dutch city planners accompanied by a half Israeli half French artist will save the day.

While we were discussing the various possibilities on how to grant the people of Marl what they said they needed most we ate some of the following:

 

A weird cocktail of German sausages and croquette spiked into a neatly decorated half cut pineapple. On the shashlik stick with the juicy croquette there was a cherry tomato and cucumber. Next to that there was a large plate full of different kinds of cheese: Camembert, Gouda, Blue cheese and so on. Next to the plate with cheeses stood a large pot with a courgette crème soup and next to the crème soup stood some strange but expensive looking meat and noodles. At the very end of the table there were glasses with something that looked like whipped mayonnaise with hagelslag and some beer and champagne. I was told that the whipped mayo with hagelslag was the dessert. Before this bizarre meeting at the town hall of Marl we had a nice tour with Boris and Dirk and some other guys I couldn’t recognize or identify with through Marl and the neighboring cities.

 

Last night after the daily bike tour I couldn’t keep myself standing as my illness was still high profile and so I was allowed to depart to my room earlier than the rest. I said bye to the others and headed to the hotel I was told we were to sleep in that night. I passed the city center and entered the lobby of the hotel and was shocked to find myself in the middle of a proper hotel. I couldn’t remember the last time I stayed in a hotel. What have I done, I thought to myself, to sleep in this hotel building in the middle of this estranged and lonely town of Marl of all places? Why is it Marl that for once in my life I can sleep in a proper bed, a proper hotel and a proper mini bar?

 

In any case the joy of my realization that I am staying the night in a proper hotel, free of charge, vanished quickly as I had at least a 39 degree fever and felt I was about to die, this time in Marl. I immediately closed the lights in the room, took off my shoes and went to sleep. Because I was in such a hurry to go to bed early due to my fever, I forgot to ask where my luggage was put, so I didn’t shower and went to sleep with the same clothes I was wearing during the day that were already soaked in sweat as my fever was starting to fluctuate between my body and the surface of my clothes. I woke up several times during the night as I wasn’t sure if its day time or night time or where the hell is my luggage and what the fuck am I doing here in Marl, in a proper hotel room with a fever of 39 degrees.

 

As I woke up after the terrible night I managed to get myself out of bed and call the reception like they do in movies and asked them if they had a clue where my luggage was as I wanted to have a shower to clean myself from the stinky and sweaty clothes that were by now sticking to my body. I called the reception and luckily they knew where my luggage was and so I went down the elevator to the lobby, got my luggage, went back up, had a shower, went back down and waited in the lobby for the rest of the group.

 

Now I’m back in bed in the water tower in Oberhausen. Tomorrow I will leave back to The Hague. It has been an interesting few days in the Ruhrgebiet, some strange moments, other exciting moments, but for sure I can say one thing - “ was passiert ist, ist passiert”. The Ruhr isn’t the same it used to be many years ago, and in fact not the same as it used to be even 2 years ago, at least not in my perception, when me and Sander first laid foot in the region. During these days I also learned that it depends a lot on what kind of resolution you are focused on while traveling through an area. If you look at it from a birds-eye perspective it might not be changing much, but when you go really close-up into the daily lives and personal decisions and routes being taken you see a vast network of fluctuations taking place.

 

 

I’m in the train back home. It’s midday. I had breakfast at a German breakfast cuisine cafe in the station. I used my voucher that I received at the top of the water tower accommodation last night. I barely managed to get up because I still felt very ill. I gathered all my available energy and made one last effort to get myself out of the Ruhrgebiet and onto this train.

 

In the breakfast place there were about a hundred different sausages and other heavy German breakfast delicatessen. I asked for the most neutral thing around which was a breakfast that included fruit tea, a boiled egg and bread with cheese. I sat down on one of the bar chairs and started having my breakfast.

 

Suddenly a group of 5 and then 6 and then 7 and then 8 old German guys came into the cafe. They all went immediately to the fridge and grabbed any possible bottle of beer they could find. Afterwards they started handing out envelopes to each other. I looked at one of the envelopes and instead of a postal code and address that one usually sees in the little window that envelopes have, there were several euro bills. I looked at the other guy’s envelope and saw the same there. Then they all opened their money envelopes and started laughing loudly and saying stuff in German that I didn’t understand. Some coins fell out of a few envelopes and made some noise when they dropped on the tables of the cafe. Next to me on the right was sitting a big fat guy who looked like the mayor of Oberhausen who was eating a dish with about 6 fried eggs, a hump of green liquid and some more white yellowish stuff next to it.

 

After my breakfast I headed to the train and got on it. When I entered my cabinet I noticed a very loud group of German football fans getting on the train and I was hoping they wouldn’t get on the same cabinet in which I had my seat in. Unfortunately they did sit in the same cabinet and I was starting to feel more and more ill as I noticed that my seat is right next to their seats. When I arrived to my seat number I noticed a cup full of beer on the little foldable table of my seat. I asked the loud guy who was standing in the corridor next to it to move away from my seat. He looked at me with a mouth full of beer and told me to go sit somewhere else. I looked at him, at his neighbor and at the loud football team and decided to try my luck in another cabinet. After 3 minutes of sitting in my new unreserved seat in another cabinet I was caught by a group of 40 year old women who claimed back their seats. I got up from the seat and looked for another seat in the same cabinet. I finally found one and fell asleep immediately.

 

We cross the border.

 

We are in Arnhem.

 

Somehow I’m happy to see the blue and yellow trains of the NS.

 

It’s sunny.

 

I’m back in Holland.

 

In Utrecht I have to change trains. Until then I allow myself to nap a bit more. Next to me in the train is sitting a young Japanese lady holding a Dutch language course book. She is looking at the vast wide fields outside and from time to time has a quick look in her language course book. She is now in the chapter of words related to Essen und Trinken.

 

We arrive at Utrecht.

 

It’s raining.

 

I change trains and get on the train to The Hague.

 

Now I’m in The Hague central station.

 

This is where my Ruhr trip ends this time. Almost a week ago I was sitting in the train at this station heading to Oberhausen. That time has passed. It’s strange how you get a sense of extended time when you write down your impressions. It feels as if years have passed by.

 

I put my pen and notebook down and rest a bit.