You can't be sad while riding a bike
Whims, feelings, and bikes.
I travelled there on a whim. Actually it was a whim of a whim.
It was Feb. 2020. The epidemiological tsunami that we now know as COVID 19, having already made landfall in China, hadn’t quite plunged the entire world into lockdown yet.
Obviously there were those that were raising the alarm bells, but there were many more that saw it like SARS, Ebola or Swine flu. Deadly, but not as transmissible, contained to certain areas. At least this was my understanding, if I can be so bold to try and remember how I thought of Covid, in the pre-covid times.
I was suppose to fly to the Philippines first to meet up with my parents, then onward to Macau.
The day before I was to travel, the Philippines got its first COVID case. My flight there was cancelled. Then slowly but surely my other flights were cancelled, until my entire trip was called off.
All of the sudden with the refund and several weeks already booked off, I thought about other places that I could travel to. I briefly thought of Portugal or maybe Istanbul, but something didn’t sit right.
I slowly realized (and this is a bigger realization that I’ve become more and more convince of), that despite my international upbringing I don’t actually like to do the whole “visit somewhere I’ve never been before, where I don’t know any one.” I love having someone to go visit. I love knowing that when I get to a place, there will be somebody that I already know, a friend to catch up with. Hell it doesn’t even have to be that good of a friend, it could be an acquaintance. Have you ever met someone very briefly who is from another part of the world and then they say “If you are ever in [insert country] you have a place to stay”? I love that shit. It’s always so good to have a connection to the place you are travelling to.
I eventually landed on travelling to London in the UK, to visit a friend I had visited in 2016. He was now living there and it was going to be fun to catch up and also have a place to crash while we gallivanted around the city.
I had been to London before but for only a couple of days in 2016, right after Brexit. (You can read about that trip here.) This time around I would be visiting the city right after the UK officially left the EU on January 31, 2020. Strange that somehow my two trips bookmarked the Brexit era.1
The first whim.
As part of the trip to the UK, I stopped for a couple of days in Toronto, visiting friends (see the trend here). We all took in the sights as I took in all of the amazing public transit that we used to get to all of the said sights. Subways, streetcars, buses, all working together in harmony. Or at least that is what it felt like to my public transit deprived self.
One day I was talking to my friend in London, in anticipation for my visit there, discussing trip details (remember this trip was on a whim and so I had to figure out the plans on route), when he mentioned he had been to Copenhagen and thought I should go.
As I had mentioned before, the idea of going somewhere completely new doesn’t have the same appeal or draw as it does for others. Maybe because it was a suggestion from a friend that I decided to lean in and booked the ticket.
The second whim.
I flew into Copenhagen from London, after spending about a week there. Given the timeline of the trip, I could only spend about 4 days in Copenhagen but I decided to see as much as I could.
As I landed, I exited the airport and caught a train to the city centre. Of course it was all amazing and even more impressive and smooth than London. I checked into my hostel (first time staying in a hostel if you can believe it). I think I uttered perhaps one word to a person along the way. But other than that I was just by myself. I would have a similar rate of interactions for the rest of the days I was there as well. In many ways, the trip was a form of a silent retreat. Not talking to anyone, in a strange city all by myself gave me time to sit with my thoughts and feelings. A hyper awareness of my individuality and self.
Perhaps its apt that this all happened in Copenhagen, the land of Kierkegaard.
In this awareness emotions bubbled to the surface. Feelings of sadness, loss, and confusion. Uncertainty and doubt.
Not sure what to do with all of this, I remembered I was in the land of bikes, so I rented a bike for my time there.
Biking and taking photos don’t always go well together. Keeping one hand on the bike (or none) and trying to frame the shot, all while not crashing AND getting a good shot? Very hard.
However, the bike geometry of the bike I rented allowed me to sit upright with my camera over my neck, pointed forwards, ready to capture the scene. I would use one free hand to occasionally fire the shot, without reviewing or framing the shot.
What about those big feelings? They were still there but something about being on the bike made them easier to sit with. It allowed me me to not resolve or diminish the feelings but simply feel the feelings. I sat, or rather biked with them all through Copenhagen. The biking was meditative.
After arriving back in Winnipeg, I felt a new resolve to figure out my life. I thought that, Copenhagen or at least Europe was my new “move.” I hastily applied for a master’s program at the University of Copenhagen.
Then about a month later, the Covid wave crashed onto shore. The world went into lockdown.
There were no more plans. There was staying home, except for a short walk. Staying six feet away. Lysoling your groceries. Wearing a mask.
Several years later, my boss at the cafe I worked at was asking the staff for submissions of art to put on the cafe walls. Initially, I thought I would submit some of my Macau photos from my Expiring City show (another post for another time) but then I started to look at the photos I took during Copenhagen.
It’s so easy for myself to look at past times and especially past trips with rose coloured glasses, thinking about how exciting things were. Sure there were the cool photos of all the exciting attractions of Copenhagen but what struck me was all the normal ordinary street scenes taken on my bike. I was reminded of all the feelings that I had during that time.
What struck me was how many shots would feature the the bike bell or the handlebars in various shots. These were originally destined to be chopped out of the shot in post, but the photos never got there. These elements cut through those feelings and reminded me of being on that bike, of the act of biking itself. There was a sense of motion to the photos. In many ways, these photos took on a life of there own. Almost as if the bike had taken these photos instead of me.
I didn’t anticipate these images to become a photo series but they weaved themselves together in this paradoxical nexus of feelings. Kyle McDougall in his substack post discussing an upcoming photo project, talks about how sometimes photo projects can find you. I’m glad these photos found me.
“You can’t be sad while riding a bike”
During my brief visit to Copenhagen in Feb 2020, I decided to bike everywhere to save myself time exploring the city. However, I also wanted to simply walk around and take pictures of the city. The compromise was that I strapped the camera to my chest and snapped photos on my bike rides around the city, only reviewing them when I arrived at my destination. This ad hoc solution became a routine and came to represent a rider in motion. The combination of the black and white photos and the subjects within them promotes a sort of dreariness. At the same time, the perspective of the photos demand the participation of the viewer which holds a sense of active hope.
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PS! If you are in Winnipeg, you can see this series at Thom Bargen on Sherbrook. Thanks for reading.
This post isn’t actually about visiting London in 2020, that is another post for another time. I was actually going to include my photos of my London 2020 trip in here but I decided to split it up. Those photos will have to wait, sorry!