Maurice Ravel, the composer, and Anna Tsing, the professor, provided to me the first inspirations to start this project.

Reading “The mushroom at the end of the world” by Tsing, I was envisioning Glasgow Roots as a landscape stage of a polyphony of voices, which made me think of Ravel’s most famous piece, Boléro. Erroneously, I thought the latter could be described as a polyphony. Researching about it, I learnt it is not considered as such in music theory. However, this one-movement orchestral piece has an intrinsic insistent quality to it, which still reminded me of the restoring force of Nature repairing herself when disturbed. If let, Nature could come back into our disconnected life louder and louder and louder on each generation of living beings from all the kingdoms, as a grand polyphony voices.

My initial reading and the misinterpretation of this piece led me to envision a world I would like to live in. For this reason, this final drawing is dedicated to Ravel and his wonderful music, and to Tsing and her evocative narrative.