"You're doing WHAT for work and there is a festival for WHAT?" We look at each other in amazement. They look amazed at me, because they have never heard of this work, let alone a world championship; I look amazed at her because I can not imagine a life without The World Statues. But yeah, I am van origin an Arnhem Girl. And a living statue.
It's coming. My thoughts immediately drift away when I hear the word ‘festival’. The invitation has fallen on the doormat and on Facebook the first messages emerge. It really is coming. Last year the festival had a break for the first time, the precise reasons aren’t clear to me, but that doesn’t matter anymore. It's coming! World Statues Festival 2017. And maybe it's a good thing that they didn’t organize it last year, because it's January and I already feel jitters and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
The Eusebius acoustics, the smell of hairspray and deodorant, the rustling of the sail on the church floor…I feel stone cold water on my face as I realize I’m standing in front of someone who thinks my planet is just as weird as I think hers is. With only one word I can capture her imagination. Ramblas? "Ooooooh!" She screams "where..." she freezes two seconds and then immediately laughs at herself. "They say BOO," yes, she knows them well. The neighbor’s sister’s daughter had been there on vacation last summer. "Can you find a job doing that?” I don’t quite know how to give answer to that.
Gwen Talsma
