Stranded in Barcelona (after giving a master-class as part of the exemplary ‘Four Corners' scheme which has participants from East and West Europe) due to volcanic ash in the atmosphere – which somehow has a mythic quality to it – I find myself contemplating the future of travel; or at least mine.
In the last six months alone I have flown to the US, Brazil, Argentina, Spain and India. Meeting audiences face-to-face has always been an important part of the working process for me, not only for what I can learn from people’s reactions but also from what I find I can give, sometimes in fleeting encounters. It’s a way of getting to know who you are working for and why. Furthermore, to make films that have a global reach, you have to know something of other countries. The wider the perspective, the more it seems one can concentrate on the detail and finds its universality.
But taking so many flights feels increasingly wrong, from an ecological point of view. If I accepted more of the invitations this year I could travel to Russia, Siberia, Poland and Iceland in addition to the US (again) where I have a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC in July and ORLANDO is simultaneously being re-re-released in cinemas.
What to do?
Virtual travel: deeper communication with people who write in to this site, for example, may be part of a solution. And of course writing itself – which is what I have been doing when not on the move – feels like a form of travel through the imagination, even when I am sitting very still in my hut in the snow.
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