Traveling from a different perspective

Airports, the nerve-wrecking pre-vacation turmoil in the terminals, are reminiscent of anthills in this crazy post-modern world in which we live Travelling is nice and something unique to people; at least that is what we often think. But in nature, billions of animals travel every day. To show the madness of travelling, just replace the word “tourist” or “traveler” with any insect or bird species and suddenly you realize that we are living in a real hectic, chaotic, anarchistic, but at the same time, over-organized society. For my work, I travel a lot and this is what popped up in my mind one day while I went to the airport.

I looked at this big building I have to enter and suddenly saw everything from a different perspective. It looks like a giant ant nest. Thousands of people walk in and out. There is no obvious patron. This is anarchy in its best form. At the same time, there is no anarchy at all. Everything is an organized chaos.

They are all there with a purpose, but many times I can’t see what the reason is for all those people who are there. Have you ever looked at an anthill or a termite’s nest? Every time when I have the chance, I sit down and watch what is happening. The first time I sat down and watched an anthill was when I was eight-years-old. There was a war going on between ants with and ants without wings. I was watching them without the ants realizing I was there.

This is exactly what is happening at airports as well.

It first starts at the outer gate; there are big, strong guard ants with tools that check if you belong to this nest or not. If you don’t, you will be taken away. But it is very difficult to check all the ants that arrive. Big ants...