As a theatre maker I came up
with a plan for a journey.
A journey of a little girl on a
tractor. A journey to the end of
the world, and back. But what
is the end of the world?
If I was a child, I would say: the South Pole! As an adult
I said: the worst war-country
I can imagine. Both voices,
The one of the child and the one
of the adult, said: We want to go!
Then I thought: All right,
we'll just dó that.

Doing.
Many people talk about it,
but few actually do.

Fear holds people back,
Held-back people have regrets.
Fear and regret are damaging
to people's lives, are damaging
this world. Governed by fear
and regret, there's no room for
happiness.
Southpole challenges those fears.
It tries to encourage.
Southpole is about the will to face
the world with an open-minded
attitude. The will to face world's
beauty.
Southpole does not want to be
afraid. Southpole asks:
What is it you fear?
What is it that makes you happy?
What gives you courage?

As a child I mount a tractor
and head for the South Pole.
As an adult I'll make sure I
make it home safely.

Test drive to Paris

Photo: AFP

Summer of 2002, by example of pre-study for her plans, Manon made a test drive on a tractor to Paris, to drink a cup of coffee under the Eiffel tower.
What started as an experiment became a project enthusiastically followed by radio, television and the writing press. The journey to Paris raised money and attention for Unicef and War Child.

On the tractor through the fields, driving round and around the Arc de Triomphe, eye-to-eye with the French gendarmerie, waltzing with a eighty-year old Frenchman and his chicken, smoking a cigarette with an Arabic sheik in his limousine on the camping in Bois du Boulogne, and bumping into a legion of about 400 children on 25 tractors..

Comments are closed.