Open air is the “breath” of the green earth. There is no opposition between the ethereal and the material, no sky above us toward which to ascend, but rather a we that is always already within a sky that is nothing other than living earth. That is to say, a sky built by the metabolic activity of living beings, capable of creating the conditions that make our life possible.
Living in the open air is not the same as being in nature and far from civilization, because—shopping malls aside—nature is everywhere; it does not mean being outside; it means being everywhere at home within those living territories on which our subsistence is founded, and where every living being inhabits the entanglement of other living beings.
However, being in the open air requires a certain commitment: a life that is exclusively urban, disconnected from the circuits that channel biomass toward us, disconnected from the elements and from other forms of life, makes access to the open air decidedly difficult. In the heart of cities, the latter comes through tracking migratory birds or through the geopolitical practice of permaculture gardens on balconies.
Baptiste Morizot, On the animal trail, 2020
