“Asylum is the starting point for building a great future”

When the wind blows on the shore, when news and debates wear us down, when notices cause weariness, we must withdraw, take shelter. But where to find shelter? An umbrella in the rain, a police station, a room of your own, a good book, homemade compote, a discussion or petting an old toy, a two-hour walk or spontaneous disappearance… When we ask: There are no “right” answers to the question of what asylum actually is.

The definition varies depending on who is looking for it. Some experienced prison as a refuge, others as a constant threat. At one point in her life, Natalie Moyne, a performing arts consultant, felt a call to refuge. The sudden need to leave Paris, to find another value alone in the world. Drawing on this personal experience, he addressed the representation of asylum in the realm of art and thought. He put everything on paper Shelters. We dream of these shelters (Ed. Payot), it offers an invitation to get to know you better.

Collective desire

The retreat in the monastery, the tree planting, the writing workshop, the paths to Compostela, the refuge is above all another anchor challenge. A step aside that allows you to observe your daily life and experience it differently in society. According to Natalie Moyne, this is the great utility of shelter. “A few years ago, we saw books flourishing in cottages and meditation retreats. Was this a sign of a raging personality? A form of resignation, separation from the collective? I think it is the complete opposite. our collective desire to find refuge in a personal resource speaks to an important need to have a different relationship with the world. When the inhabitants were forced to flee Aquileia in the face of the arrival of the Huns, they laid the foundation for what would become Venice. Beyond escape and avoidance, shelter is a starting point for building a great future.”

Etymologically, refuge is a flight back, a return to oneself. Cave, cave, nest, garden, bed, silence, crowd, night, room… Each chapter in Natalie Moyne’s book is a door to a warped universe, laced with references. Mapping refugees is very extensive and subjective. His? It is unexpected. “My refuge is the song of the birds,” says Natalie Moyne. It reminds me of an intimacy with nature, a relationship of trust elsewhere. In a letter to Lou Andreas-Salome, the poet Rilke writes that birdsong “can even turn the whole world into an inner space for us in an instant, because we feel that the bird does not distinguish between its heart and hers. to the world.” I see a lot of myself in it.”

Endanger

It’s counterintuitive to think that seeking asylum is a risk worth taking. And yet. The place where we are most exposed to pollution is the interior of an unventilated house. Taking a ferry out to sea to escape the war is a mortal danger. And yet it is the rest of the way to refuge. In the allegory of the cave, Plato also says that refuge can correspond to retreat into a lie, violently rejecting those who point us to reality.

Shelter creation does not exist without harm

Natalie Moyne

In her book, Natalie Moyne discusses several types of shelters that are fraught with danger or lies. He cites the case of Michel Tournier’s Robinson, who withdraws into a cave where he has taken refuge, loses the meaning of days and nights, loses his reason, forgets his identity. “What’s so beautiful about this idea, the telluric image of the cave, is that there is no shelter without damage. We must understand that we do not exchange a value system without endangering it or putting it in a cave, perhaps facing the risk of loss of self, loss of others. There is a process of disconnecting from the day, from the world, from a part of us. We have to figure out how to consider the return… or not.”