The Greek god Zeus released two birds to find the center of the earth. One bird flew east and the other bird west, meeting each other at Delphi on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. To mark the center of the earth, Zeus placed a stone at the point where the birds met. The stone was called the omphalos stone, the meaning of omphalos being ‘navel’.
My grandmother lives in a tiny village, not yet conquered by expansion. Empty grassland defining the border. Her anchor point in the middle of change: her omphalos. In itself nor good nor bad, but there.
Once we went biking together. It was a cold day, but not yet that cold that we needed to wear gloves. We quietly crossed the border, biking around the edges of her world. The wind caused my hands to turn red, but my grandmother confidently continued pedaling. Her hands never turn cold. Undeniably tied to this place, her brisk white hair, strong hands and generous wrinkled face are a representation of the landscape itself. She knew where we were going, I only had to follow. While biking behind her, I wished to have my own center of the earth to bike away from and back home to.
Sybren Dallinga (1995) is a photographer and graduate of the MAFilm and Photographic Studies at Leiden University. The topics that she explores in her theoretical research, such as trauma, landscape, place and death, now often function as sources of inspiration for her photography projects. Currently, she is living in The Hague spending as much time as possible on personal projects and mastering new techniques within the field of analogue photography.
