Lotte van Geijn

The Dutch word for death (dood) is a palindrome, perhaps not without reason. Palindrome comes from the Greek palin (again) and drómos (to walk). A palindrome is a word that seems to evade our convention of reading from right to left with a hop. The horizontal reading direction of our language does a somersault here. The direction of the reversed word turns abruptly at the end and in my mind I walk back the same way. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth; as if death too is trying to escape from itself. The word does not seem to want to stop. – Lotte van Geijn is an artist and writer.