Instruction by India Roper-Evans (GB/D)

„Legend has it that when the apes disappear from Gibraltar, so will the British“

Instruction: Find a Barbary Macaque. Sketch it. Find a Brit. Sketch him/her. Take both sketches to top of Rock of Gibraltar. Place together in safe spot.

This is what India Roper Evans, a London artist currently living in Berlin, instructed me to do on her postcard. The funny thing: I didn't find the monkey first, but the Brit: I met Richard J., from close to Cambridge, on my first evening in Gibraltar, when I was having dinner in a restaurant. He was sitting the table next to me with a friend, they were (just like me, but for a shorter time...) also visting Gibraltar. We started talking and discussing, about the Brexit, Europe, the refugees, the UK, Germany, etc etc... and they invited me to drink a glass of white wine with them. It was no problem for Richard when I asked him to be part of a collaborative art project. His daughter is a photographer, so he seemed to be used to this kind of stuff.

The monkey I found the next day. On Ape's Den, on the Rock of Gibraltar. Only took a photo and drew him later, sorry, too scared. I did the drawing of Richard also later, not because I was scared, but I wanted to communicate rather than draw.

Tonight, I went up the Rock again – a British comedian, Mark Steel, was giving a show in the Michael's Cave, an impressive grotto inside the Rock. The show, which was all about Gibraltar, will be broadcasted on BBC radio soon. So before the show started, I decided it was the right time to hide the drawings, put together, in a (very safe) spot. Had to fold and crumple them, but they are together now. Let's see, for how long.