I visited Helene and Tania, two very different Christania residents, to talk to them about their motivations and drive to adopt an alternative lifestyle and make some rather big lifestyle choices.
Helene is a jewellery designer who has been living in Christiania for close to 20 years. She lives in a new house she built recently using a number of different ecological and sustainable technologies. She lives there with her 2 children and another Christiania resident shares part of the house.
Tania is a actor-performer who works freelance for projects and events. She is an activist at heart and having travelled all over the world came back to Denmark a couple of years ago. When she got back, she knew she had to live in Christiania.
TALKING TO THEM
Rather than a structured interview I instead had long conversations with Helene and Tania. I had imagined that they would be able to tell me why and how they went about making certain life choices. Instead I found, they did what “just felt right”. The said the decisions were not weighed choices between the pros and cons. It was to them almost as though they had no choice because any other way would not be true to themselves.
It was interesting to find have my assumptions disqualified so resoundingly.
