Brussels in the Rain, 2019
acrylic on canvas, 130 × 100 cm

“On 7 November, we were woken by the rain. Jan was an hour late for breakfast. We did not wait for him. Each of us went his or her own way. I didn’t rush. I waited for a taxi. Piotr and Jan started the day at the Square – Brussels Convention Centre with a meeting of the Rectors of all seventeen members of the consortium and of student representatives.

At 9.00, I have a meeting scheduled at the Brittany representation to the EU. The taxi is ten minutes late already. Fifteen minutes. I can already tell that I won’t make it. The hotel porter apologizes. There are traffic jams and he opens his hands. “I should have called a taxi earlier, and not when I left the hotel,” I thought. To wait or not to wait? There’s the taxi. I get in. Traffic jams. A conversation with the driver about nothing. Rains falls. I don’t have an umbrella. It’s 9.10 and there’s still two kilometers to go. It’s 9.15. “See, there’s the Brittany representation,” the taxi-driver says. A traffic jam. I pay and get out in the middle of a crossing. It’ll be faster. “Be careful!” I hear as I close the door. Rain falls. It’s grey. I squeeze between the cars in my high heels. People are hurrying to work; they crowd together at the pedestrian crossings. I’m there. They’re still waiting for the representatives from the University of Split. Phew. I’m not the last at the meeting.”

SEA EU Maritime Universities
in the Paintings of Aneta Oniszczuk-Jastrząbek, Gdańsk 2022