Now, how to shove?

The first technical drawings for the “Monument for transition” are dated on November 2010. At that moment I was working in my studio in Amsterdam, and my mind was not yet in Moengo. You could tell, because I drew Mickey with his feet in the Dutch soil. I proposed to dig a great hole into the ground to shove the treetrunks in. At the end of the trunks I drew “cross trunks” with a length of 6 meters, to get extra strength, so that the hole in the ground had to be at least seven by seven meters and four meters deep, it would come close to the size of the local swimmingpool.

My proposition to start mining in the citycentre of Moengo

When I arrived in Moengo I showed my drawings to the bauxiet mining experts of the Suralco company. These people are professionals when it comes to making holes in bauxiet ground. They were quite amused to see my plans - to start mining in the citycentre of Moengo. So we laughed a little, made new plans and we all went along.

 

Now, how to put the treetrunks into the ground?

 

Those new plans had to do with a fine piece of equipment, a 550mm drill that would split open the earth to make way for mister Mouses feet.

“A regel”. Yesterday a view months were passed, and I had a good talk with the men of Suralco again. It was a talk guided by two kinds of gestures: For the first gesture we only needed one hand, we would make a space of about 100 mm between our thumb and our index finger. This points out the diameter of the only drill that the company of Suralco is using and has ever been using. For the second gesture we would have to change position, find stability in the body, use both arms and hands, spread them out as far as we could, lean the head a bit to the back and then make the arms round, but not being able to let the fingertips touch. This points out the size of the drill that we would need for Mickeys gentle but comprehensive legs.

Finally we'll connect the two other parts to the treetrunks

But in Suriname language there is no word for “problem”. Though there is a word for “try” (pruberi). Tomorrow, on a Sunday morning, the wonderful people of Suralco will pruberi to find a spot in Moengo that does not consist out of bauxiet ground but out of pure soil. We will check several locations in Moengo, dig as much holes as needed, until we find a place that only exists out of soil, the soil that is in my mind already for so long.