A visit to the famous Parque Ibirapuera in Sao Paulo was part of the preliminary tourist activities in connection to participating in the IFTR (International Federation for Theatre Research) conference next week. Together with Pilvi Porkola I followed Tero Nauha, who had been in Sao Paulo before, on a long and winding walk to the Ibirapuera park with the aim of visiting some of the museums there, and also perhaps sitting in a tree if a suitable one would show up. I imagined Sao Paulo to be a place where I would not want to walk away from my camera and leave it alone behind my back, but the park turned out to be calm and peaceful with strolling families. Almost immediately upon entering the park we saw some small trees by the lake, and although it seemed strange to jump on the first one, it proved clever, because most of the other trees where big and beautiful but nothing to climb in with my skills and limited strength. I invited Tero and Pilvi as my assistants to relax on the grass and keep an eye on the camera, while I tried to find a comfortable place in the small tree by the lake. That proved easier said than done. Of my repeated attempts I actually edited an additional video called “Finding a place in Ibirapuera Park”. The main work, that is, the version where I sit still on the lowest branch of the tree, called “By Lake Ibirapuera” looks rather peaceful, which is an illusion, because the position was extremely uncomfortable. This small and beautiful tree which resembled an acacia, but quite definitely was not an acacia, proved rather unwelcoming despite its low branches. It provided a perfect place to watch life on the shore, however, and in the water, too, which housed big fish coming to the shore, perhaps expecting to be fed, and beautiful black birds.
 

 

 
Pilvi took some images as documentation, which show the situation better than the video stills: