I solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God humans.
Given my pleads, my attests to evidence, my invitation to question my objectification, I now surrender to your assessment of the state of disrepair I reside in, by testifying. Testifying to that exact state in which I reside.
A persistently polluting level of noise seems to have surrounded me ever since I was born here. It seems as though my neighbours are at the root of this very displacement of commotion. As the sun rises, I greet crawling creatures emerging from the earth that seek nourishment, birds I let rest on the tentacles of my chest throughout their daily commute and as they prepare for departure, they are spotted by slightly larger life that identifies them as prey. Simultaneously, as this intertwined habitat of Earth awakens, the noise that I had believed to have disappeared as night had fallen, surfaces like clockwork. Rattling steel boxes filled with my neighbours bounce on elastic circles along an inanimate surface they call asphalt.
As I understand, they deem my presence along their turbulent highway as a symbol of comfort. The beautiful fingertips that have grown from my arteries for decades, shine proudly as the light hits their radiantly lush green skin. Through the accumulation of these leafy arms and it’s perceived density, the illusion is created that my family and I have – and will – live here eternally. Quite the contrary is true.
Adjacent to the highway, obscured to the commuting neighbours by my presence, the decomposing bodies of my own family lie. All that remains is their ankles.
As soon as new patches of forest have either been identified or have been replanted to a – in their opinion – mature state to serve as the new retention forests, concurrently my fate will be sealed. I will follow in my family’s footsteps. I will either sustain my current purpose as a billboard of a misleading portrayal of natural habitat, or my entire being, my public service as a vital organ of Earth’s natural habitat, will be eradicated. As I remain an advertisement until my 60th birthday, my expiration date, I will not live up to the service my ancestors provided to this Earth.
The small remaining natural or replanted areas cannot support viable populations of affected local species. As I will live until a young age, a tenth of the age my ancestors reached, and I will not naturally die and decay, I will not allow species relying on dead trees to survive. I will not be able to regenerate fully which will reduce the soil’s fertility and I will weaken the ecological resistance as a whole. My duty will remain insufficient as it continues to be undermined to serve humanity’s materialistic appetite, until they see a truly sustainable approach fit.
Annika
Doucet, Isabelle and Frichot, Hélène, eds. ‘Introduction: Resist, Reclaim, Speculate’ in Architectural Theory Review 22:1, 2018.
Rendell, Jane. ‘Prologue: Prepositions’ in Jane Rendell, Site Writing, London: I.B. Tauris, 2010.
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