Summer Vacation

Vernissage. It’s loud. Hopefully many visitors – otherwise, a slight sense of disappointment. I’m sitting inside, the others are outside, drinking wine, while I’m inflating air mattresses.

My first visitors arrived already in the early afternoon, but they didn’t stay long. The bare room, the few scattered air mattresses – probably not the right atmosphere for the art-minded guests.

Then, a brief conversation with a young artist. Yellow mattress, hard to inflate – still, a good exchange.

Change of position. A stool instead of the stairs. Color-sorted air mattresses on the radiator to my right. I stare out the window. No interest from passersby.

Finally, a little girl, staring at me, hesitates briefly in the doorway – she has to go home for dinner...

The monotony of my task is occasionally broken by short bursts of euphoria when another mattress is filled with air. I carefully seal its valve and let it glide to the floor with the others. Right away, I unfold the next mattress and bite on the valve until air finally starts to flow into its chambers.

Mattress by mattress, the room slowly fills up, and the emptiness that once dominated gives way to the colorful, air-filled plastic bodies. At first, they just cover the floor, but then I start to stack them. Since towers of single mattresses prove too unstable, I start constructing – with the help of some visitors – a larger, more stable central tower. Higher and wider, I continue stacking and wedging the mattresses into the structure until, by the last day, it touches the ceiling and the room can barely be crossed.