Juxtaposition

Juxtaposition: an instance of placing close together or side by side, especially for comparison or contrast.

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I have spent the past three months lamenting not living in Leiden anymore. Not to mention my friends, I sorely miss all the little corners of the quaint city that were the source of much joy whilst I lived there. The canals I walked on when they froze, and kayaked in when not, that one little corner of the library which got me in the zone not matter how distracted I may have been, the cosiest cafés I know… My apartment and its many windows, two of which faced east and west, that kept me awake during summer solstice for over 24-hours, only three of which were spent waiting for the sunlight to reappear.

At the nadir of winter, I moved to Maastricht. It was dark when I arrived at work, and dark before I left for home. The people spoke with an accent, and there are no canals. The river Maas is rather commercial, and one wouldn’t exactly call it idyllic. And my apartment is above a pub, which often transforms into a discotheque, which allows one to neither sleep, nor remain awake soundly. Disaster!

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The Leiden Law School is perhaps everything one would expect from a law school. It is housed in a modern, but impressive building, the students wear suits, and everything is relatively serious. The life of a law student at Leiden law school is quite wonderfully captured in an art installation in the middle of the stairwell – a gigantic avatar of the sword of Damocles finely balanced against a great number of law books held together by string on the other side of a pulley.

Law student lead a similar life no matter which law school she attends. Despite being housed in a historical building, the Maastricht Law School has a slightly different feel to it. The professors seem to be more approachable and relaxed, and students do not wear suits so often. And even if there is no art installation to remind them about it, students do feel the presence of a sword hanging over their heads – although those who fail only realize this belatedly.

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Something changed today. As I sat in my office preparing for tomorrow’s lecture, I heard something heavy falling from a considerable height – and then another. And then music began playing as things continued to descend from what seemed like the open gates of blue heaven.

But, it was the Maastricht Theatre Academy, where students were clearing out an old administrative office of all its contents. Heaps of old furniture, and documents were being formed in their courtyard as some students jettisoned them from the top floor of the building, while some others assorted them below. Another student skateboarded in another corner practicing his stunts. It was all a bit surreal as a bundle of old documents came loose mid-air and scattered all over like confetti, as the music played on.

I was just soaking in the atmosphere (and the Spring sun) by the window when this black wooden chair flew down, and albeit now a bit shaky, it managed to stay in one piece. The chair, I thought had character. So, I whistled to one of the blokes and asked if I could have it. “This one?”, he asked, and in jest offered to fling it up, but I went down instead.

“What’s going on here?”

“Well, we are just clearing out some old administrative offices to make room for perhaps a new music studio.”

“And you will get rid of all this – that pile of documents looks like a chunk of history there.”

“Yes, it is.. but we are not getting rid of everything. Like this rather impersonal letter from 1980 informing a former student that he was not good enough to be kept at the academy.”

The chair now sits in my office. A tad shaky it may be, but I sit on it.

Juxtaposed with the “serious” law school, the girls and guys of the Theatre Academy seemed like a careless lot. Or so the look on the face of (perhaps) a law student's face, walking past with a bandaged nose, seemed to suggest. But behind their gay façade, these guys work their backsides off, while facing uncertain careers and not much of a safety net. Nevertheless, their gaiety fills the air for us all to feel.

I walked past the hallways of the Theatre Academy, which were decorated with graduation performance pictures from as long ago as the early-1950s. The actors appeared to be invincible in those pictures. But it was not an air of arrogance one saw in the picture, but rather the invincibility of dreams and hope! And that is contagious.

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“Il n’y a pas de choix: pas d’art sans la vie” – René Magritte

Thanks to the juxtaposition of the Theatre Academy with the Faculty of Law, there is hope for Maastricht after all!