Can humans collaborate with a river? Again: a river and a human. Can they come to a decision together? Truly together. It not being a meddling in the name of this or that, nor a secretly projection of all kinds of things by a human brain. ‘The river is suddenly splashing so wildly, it must be bored with my thoughts’. How can both think together about essential things? Is it possible to speak a common language?
As a start: how does one greet a river?
Perhaps by standing next to it. For a long time. For days on end, until the mind becomes blank. Waiting, watching that ever-moving something. That ever-moving someone. That being that splashes and rustles. As the blood in us humans, too, rustles continuously.
The Maas Lab is a multi-year collaboration between SoAP, TAAT, and the river Maas. Maaswacht is part of this. For an entire year, each day there will be someone present at the river. Even now, as you read this, someone will be standing next to the water (and when not, they’ll be eating or resting in the small house that the Maaswatchers can use for their work).