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SECRET POOL
photography, colour, series (selection)
From the staircase of the flat in Copenhagen where I was living for a few months I accidentally discovered a secret back entrance to the biggest public pool of the city. For the duration of one month I went swimming and celebrated pool parties at night.
A secret ‚pool society’ evolved. We gathered at night in my appartment, ate and drank, and then walked on tippy-toes through the secret back door. We swam, used sauna and diving boards, talked, meditated and listened to Maria Callas. A strange and new feeling of time and an inner connectedness emerged. The permanent rippling, the weird twylight of the street lamps, our nakedness, the voice of Maria Callas and the knowledge of doing something slightly illegal. It was like stepping outside of the given rules and structures for a little while. There existed a space in between, outside the given matrix.
Nobody could withdraw from the beauty and the power of the water. Some said they had not felt as free since being a teenager. Others were spiritually touched. Sudden beauty can open you up to falling in love and three new love couples came out of that month. But it was not so much an erotic atmosphere, more an innocent feeling. Garden Eden. Or Utopia. By entering the small door in the staircase it was as if we all were able to enter an identical dream, a surreal space of a deep collective memory. Like urban space in flux, the world in flux. The perfect and archetypal urban myth.
The -> first public Urban Pilgrimage Copenhagen ended at the Secret Pool. I invited everybody to take a swim and said:
‚In my opinion free spaces are important for Copenhagen, especially right now. My wish for this city is: Keep free spaces, in reality and in mind.' Then I started playing the song ‚O mio babbino caro, composed by Puccini in an interpretation by Maria Callas, undressed and glid into the water. Three days later the secret door was locked. The legend keeps going in Copenhagen
The photos were taken for Urban Pilgrims by:
Nis Jensen: 1, 6, 8, 9
and Angela Dorrer
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