I sometimes struggle with refocusing some of the purposes of my life. I’m not entirely sure if that’s a matter of my inner nature, fuelled by melancholy, or just because of the shitty times. Maybe a mix of both made me loose interest in publishing what I write about.
I’m about to leave for a long trip, and maybe it’s time to face also this thing: my blog. I stopped not for lack of content but for 60% lack of time and 40% abundance of sadness that my words won’t reach a destination.
So I made the childish decision ever, and stop writing. Actually, stop posting. I kept writing, mostly on paper. I lost focus, but I am gradually give it a try again, in mind the idea that a new purpose will resurface and the feeling of satisfaction will warm my heart again.
I had a guest staying with me in August, and I brought him to one of my special place in Berlin. We were blessed with warm days, that specific Sunday was however stormy and windy. I captured families enjoying the wind, and I felt a special connection with the surroundings. Here some shots of that day, enjoy.
I’m back to talk about my seasonal favourites, spanning through music, film, radio and much more.
For this 2015 I decided to explore the topic “Playlist” on a different level, not anymore on a monthly basis, but based on the seasons, on each colours, weather and events that happen along the way. This winter has been unusual, cold and grey, but snow lacked, for my disappointment. Spring came with a windy week of clear sky and sun, here in Berlin. Quite a blessing, culminated with the solar eclipse on March 20th, equinox day, what a show.
Well, let’s start with the favourites, let me know what you think.
Enjoy and bring joy with you, always.
Val
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– Music –
In this playlist you can find:
– Flowers –
You can tell it’s January in Berlin when you can find the first narcissuses and tulips and more in every supermarket. I love them! such a colourful presence in my flat. I personally like to buy myself a nice posy, to display in my bedroom. It’s a lovely feeling to wake up and see flowers, indeed!
– Film –
I watched Song One because of the beautiful presence of singer songwriter Johnny Flynn and a great soundtrack. Despite the music, the movie itself is meh, I must admit, so maybe skip the movie and go listen to the OST.
I also watched Birdman since it won the Oscars, and I can tell that it’s an excellent movie, but I simply can’t explain how Boyhood didn’t bring the statue home. Seriously I can’t wrap my head around it.
I ended up watching Still Alice a Saturday night that I was home alone. I generally liked the idea, and Julianne Moore really studied the pathology before playing the role, but what a weird way to roll the narrative, highlighting things that would not necessarily be highlighted (Husband cheating? Kids’ daily drama?)…Dunno. Not impressed in the end. I have also to say I really dislike the choice of letting a saltless actress like Kristen Stewart such an important character?
Whiplash wowed me. What a great, cruel movie about music and jazz. It reminded me of a past boyfriend practising jazz until his hands bleed. It’s true that that kind of practice makes you a fierce human being. Sometimes a bit of a superior asshole too. And then, well, there’s my homie Miles Teller. I always watch and support him, he’s finally starting to move forward shitty blockbusters and work with his talent for nicer, more meaningful scripts.
I want to suggest you StartUp, from Gimlet Media. At the beginning I thought that the podcast was a spin-off like Serial of TAL (I spoke about my devotion for this podcast and host Ira Glass last year) bur it’s something different. I really liked the story telling and the genuine enthusiasm and tender naivety to the business world, while he is approaching to start his own business.
I took some time yesterday to say goodbye to the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. No, I’m not planning to move away, but there will be major renovation works soon, so the New National Gallery will be closed from 2015 for several years. Several years, what an awful news.
Albeit the loss the city will face in terms of contemporary art offer, if you are in the city head there, and just enjoy the wonderful installation designed by British architect David Chipperfield. After the great renovation made at Neues Museum in Museum Island, he worked in the open glass hall of the New National Gallery by displaying 144 impressive tree trunks.
I was blessed with a beautiful sunny day and the reflections of the light, the rays trespassing and the shadows produced were stunning. The synergy created between place, materials and light was the highlight of my Sunday. Additionally visitors create beautiful interactions by touching the 8m tall trees, by moving around, by creating new shadows.
Toddler playing
The exceptionality of living this open space in such a different way is striking if you are usually used to see it as a blank canvas, with no pillars sustaining its free floating roof. Architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed the space to be widely open, an interaction of granite floors, steel columns and glass. The introduction of wood on the granite, literally stick and stones, adds new meanings to the space itself: it gives a natural support to the roof, that for all this years; it gives also a sense of closure, anticipating the structural works the museum is about to undergo. An English nursery rhyme says “Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”. I saw this installation also as a wish, to avoid cracking the soul of the New National Gallery with the upcoming works.
Sony Center in the background
The exhibition continues downstairs until December 31st, if you have no money to pay the ticket just go there and enjoy the forest in the hall, it is for free and really worth a visit.
P.S.: as you may see the pictures were taken with a mobile phone. I had no power to control light and sharpness. At the end, I quite like the rough result this time.
I believe this past weekend was indeed the best one to be in Berlin. In part I am saying it because the weather was gracefully beautiful, but mostly because the events that the city pulled out for the 25th Anniversary of the Wall Fall were really on point. Lichtgrenze was a sublime project, and didn’t miss to spread a clear reminder of how a city can not be divided, without losing its soul.
This art project, composed of 15 km of light installation, sent out a message of clear immortality, like a peace can be reached, without forgetting, without losing the memory of it, of its core. 15 km to walk along, across, next to. The invisible wall of light was constantly mixing up with the city, with the iconic buildings of the past and the new ones, with citizens and tourists.
I walked for 12 out of those 15km, carrying a broken camera, motivated to capture some eloquent moments, despite the crappy instrument (seriously, I need a camera). I played mostly with long exposures, because I despise the flash and wanted to preserve the colours. Suicidal move: I didn’t use a tripod, because it’s another thing I need to buy. I started walking around the closest piece of the Berlin wall I have next to where I live, the central part, on Friday. On Saturday, Mitte filled with people everywhere, I explored the northern part, from the Hauptbahnhof until the ex border crossing point Bornholmer Strasse. I kept the eastern part, around my neighbourhood, for Sundaym with the plan to get to the East Side Gallery. I didn’t reach it, due to the mass of people on the street. For many reasons, it looked like NYE. After an emotional tour around Kreuzberg, finding my way through the thousand of people on the streets, I stopped at Schillingbrücke, that is an important bridge between Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain, West and East Berlin. I thought it was a great point to see the balloons, that were attached to the light installation, let free. I could have decided to go to Brandeburger Tor and enjoy the concerts, but I wanted it to be a more private experience, and I really wanted to be at the crossroads between two former countries, now one. It was a good farewell. A meaningful one. I went home with the awareness of being part of the history. Moreover, I went home with the moral obligation to remember the history and share it with as many as possible.
Here are some snippets of the event. Bear with me for the quality. MORE PICTURES CAN BE FOUND ON MY FLICKR in the following days.
Zimmerstrasse
Checkpoint Charlie
Beautiful border between Kreuzberg and Mitte
@ Topography of Terror
Awful shot @ Potsdamer Platz, , the lights and people there were too many for my old friend, the crappy camera.
To Brandenburger Tor
The Reichstag-Bundestag area.
Liesenstrasse at the corner with Chaussestrasse, Mitte
There is a wonderful, free event at the Bundestag in Berlin, going on every evening at 7:45pm since the beginning of Summer, ending October 3rd.
October 3rd, does it ring a bell? It’s Tag der Deutschen Einheit, the day to celebrate the German reunification.
A friend of a friend brought attention to a film and light show along the river Spree, and curious to see I brought my camera along. What I saw what beyond expectations, a nice 30 minutes journey through parliamentary German history, from the Reichstag to the Bundestag, across the facts that changed Germany (the crisis, Nazism, war, the wall and its fall ’til the modern days).
I am not a German citizen, but I have been living here enough to tell the good and bad of it. Not by any mistakes, the fact to have the possibility to be involved with such an important yet elusive element like politics is a sign of civility: It’s a sign democracy is working here.
There is nothing better than education and promotion when well explained, in a clear, catchy way; not to forget for free too. I found the event an excellent way to remember people the importance of politics, moreover the importance to vote.
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The show is subbed in English and always accompanied by famous German songs. The part about the Fall of the Wall was really entertaining and also quite moving, I must admit.
Here is a video:
Thanks Deutscher Bundestag for the pleasant event.
Last Saturday in Berlin we experienced a very cool event in Mitte, precisely at Neue Nationalgalerie and related exhibition at Deutsche Bank KunstHalle “Otto Piene. More Sky”.
Let me start by saying I didn’t know this artist, at least I didn’t remember of him, but nevertheless its interest hold me an entire weekend, buzzing about him, despite the crazy heath hitting the Hauptstadt. It was a sky art exhibition!
This is a great video by Deutsche Bank to understand how big and exciting, especially with the help of the darkness, it was.
His beautiful description explains better than anything all the celebrations Deutsche Bank KunstHalle made for Otto Piene.
His Manifesto.
I took some pictures at Deutsche Bank KunstHalle I want to share with you, enjoy.
That feeling of goosebumps on your arms when sun and win blend while you’re on your bike. That particular feeling, that one. There. It was me a week ago under a Summer day in Berlin.
I use my bike, sport in general, to keep my mind straight. It takes constance, abnegation and respect for the rules, and I like it like that because it helps my crazy head to stay alive.
I absolutely adore when I have free time to combine bike and photography, and this is the result of my past wanderings. I mainly went South, or followed the circular road around Berlin zone A, prophetically called “The Ring”.
Karneval der Kulturen is a celebration for all the different cultural associations in Berlin; they come in my neighbourhood, Xberg, once a year to party and parade along the street. It’s a very nice, messy and feeling-young event.
This year all the elements were in one mix: sun, heath, crowd, music, food, alcohol and “multikulti“.
I take this space now to focus on my point of view, meaning the lonely me walking in the streets with a camera, bumping across people every second, and looking at the infinite people looking at the Karneval from a terrace. Bliss.
I hope you enjoy this different ‘angle’.
I loved these mothers with their children. There is so much Xberg in this pic.
Who cares if you have a party going in- and outside your terrace when your neighbour is Kanye West playing a solo guitar??
Many old people and couples enjoyed the view: so much life going on in the street, so much youth, an unique view for the weekend. I loved to see them involved from their window.
A cheeky refreshening service for the community: this is how Xberg contributes to beat the heat (34 degrees are no joke around here)
A special mention to: This bloke. He was having the time of his life indeed.
Dear stranger, life belongs to the curious. Come downstairs next time, and see yourself.
Good weather is gracefully adorning Berlin this June.
Good weather, warm temperatures, positive feelings around East and West B.
Last Sunday I was right in the middle, in Mitte, for a great event for free: Staatoper für alle.
Free music is already a good thing for a city, but what gives a more interesting twist is the fact that it’s made in the middle of city centre, by blocking one of the most important street from transports etc, just for the pleasure to occupy the square, Babelplatz, its street and surroundings. I must admitI really admire how organically my fellow citizens come for this kind of events; 95% of them, moreover, come super-organised, with chairs, blankets, food and drinks. I would rename the event *Bring Your Own Camping Chair Sunday* if I could! 🙂
I love it, it’s a kind of organised spontaneity you can see vividly in Germany.
Valanzo 