Look up

The first weekend in Salzburg showed itself as a clue to the fact how fast time flies but also and more interesting to me, how much we miss to see.

During the working days of the Academy I am not a tourist even though this is my first time in Salzburg and in Austria for that matter. I am a woman on a mission and my focus is getting from point A to point B. But what became evident to me during the first, so to say, free Saturday in Salzburg, is how much I was not aware of the town around me. It is that interesting point or question I ended up asking myself of when did I stop looking around me and why? When did the monuments and sculptures that Salzburg is full off just disappear as it is the case with most of the park sculptures, monuments that I can see in Belgrade, meaning that I am just used to them?

It was a surprise to me last night once I realized that for the past week almost every day I have been passing next to the work of Marina Abramovic "The spirit of Mozart" without even seeing it. I did notice the stainless steel chairs lined in a group but I missed to see the big tall chair overlooking the group of chairs representing the spectacles. The work is located next to the beginning of the main bridge that connects my side of the town to the side of the Hohensalzburg Fortress and the old city. And it wasn't that I was the only one that missed this work but also two of my new friends from the Academy as well. Yesterday all three of us felt that we are finally starting to relax and that we are slowly feeling more comfortable with our new surroundings and tasks at hand. Adaptation phase seems to  have passed  and because of this we can begin to see all around us more.

What I have noticed is that possibly this focus on the task at hand can at the beginning make us a little bit closed off to what is around us. I don't think that anyone wants to miss what is going on but it does take time to get used to where you are and to more importantly start to relax. This for sure is the reason why most of the students during the first week did stick with their own groups and professors. It is this but also the focus and desire to create something during the time that all of us are  here and together. We are all challenged here but in meeting the challenges let us not forget to look up, down, right or left and explore. Explore by living.