From blistering sun to complete darkness

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Un instant de rêve et de pause.

This is the text on a signpost in the little village of Antraigues-Sur-Volane in the south of France, where we have a townhouse.

Almost every spring, we start our season of travels with a shorter or longer stay, and this year our moments of dreaming and pausing have been plentiful, as we have had almost six weeks of blistering sunny days separated by sudden torrential rainstorms and thunder, which have boomed between the mountains.


Yesterday our lazy days were over. 

We raced up through France and across the channel with the TGV and Eurostar - and now we are back in one of our favorite megacities in the whole wide world: 

Fabulous ever-swinging London!

In our mountain village, we have about 300 neighbors and we're on greets with most when we pass them on our daily, leisurely walks

Now we are surrounded by millions of anonymous Londoners. Many are hurrying past in the busy neighborhood of Islington, where we are staying for the next several weeks

The contrast within 24 hours has given us quite a culture shock and it is perhaps fitting that we found our very first London experience inside pitch-dark rooms, where bright spotlights pick out ethereal silver visions apparently floating in midair.



Some are hanging like distant galaxies, and others look like delicate drawings in thin air.

The exhibition in the Serpentine Gallery is by the fabled Argentinian artist Tomás Saraceno. We have seen some of his former exhibitions in other museums, but this time around he have busy helpers making the actual works of art.

Spiders!

Myriads of tiny master architects have assembled the seemingly floating sculptures, which are so delicate they tremble ever so slightly when you let out a sigh. 


When we entered the black void inside the gallery, we were perhaps a little bit stressed, a little bit tense. When we left, we felt an almost zen-like bliss

Now we are definitely ready to take on London!



(PS - the photos above are not our own. As Saraceno expresses it, the spiders have messages, that no camera can capture, and we were kindly asked to leave our phones outside. 

It was actually quite blissful standing there,  just experiencing without having to try to capture anything)



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