Photo Report: Winter 2020 in Berlin

Dreams. Time and Space. 

Hope. Modesty and Truth. 

Revelations. Magic and Mystery.

I would say that these are the key words of this quote which may be found as one ventures around Friedrichshain and Neukölln, two key east Berlin districts – or ‘Kiez’, as they name them here. 

This picture was taken on my way to an art lesson at a friend’s house. It has a picturesque touch – the outlines of the wall are clear, and the buildings and the car seem to have been drawn with a fine paintbrush. The colour pallet is striking – warm and cooler colours coexist. A bright yellow covers the dull interior of a little white car.  Bleak black letters lie on a light-toned background, and the black outlines of the wall contrast and complement the plain blue sky, which does not seem to lie above it, but rather aside it, in a surrealistic and symbolic way. 

The angle in which this picture has been taken gives the impression that the objects are on the same vertical plane and even though there is no one visible around, there is an important dose of humanity that is clear in the letters on the concrete wall human beings coexist harmoniously when they dream and share hope when they delve into the beauty of observing and revealing truth under the surface. Our human condition is perhaps best revealed through the power of art and, thus, magic too.

In the streets of Berlin, we are reminded that Feelings are essential. The red blazing light echoes the atmosphere on the Bleibtreustraße, a theme I alluded to in my last collection. Our emotions and thoughts are sharpened here and there, now and again, in this haunting place. The reverberation of sounds and colours constitutes a kaleidoscope of feelings and ideas that run through Berlin. 

Unchain our solitudes! This is the urgency that this image may remind us of. Are we really lost? The philosopher Martin Heidegger believed that we are in a process of revealing the “Being”, which encompasses human relations, nature, and the arts. I personally don’t feel lost in this city – I feel like I have embarked on a curious adventure…


As I walk out of the French Embassy at around 5pm, it’s already dark outside. In the winter, the night falls soon upon the inhabitants of this city. There is something gloomy and thrilling about it – the city changes together with the night, the vivacity of colours becomes even more intense, paradoxically perhaps. Every bike rider contributes to a colourful painting in which light and dark interact. The charm of Berlin is most profoundly seen when the sky is dark. Even though the party nightlife is at a stand-still during corona times, Berlin still feels vibrant and alive. 

As I took my lunch break, I spotted these two nuns blissfully taking pictures of one another. During the days of lockdown, the riverside is quiet, except for some local passerbys. I felt that I connected with them on some level, even though we did not speak. I guess this is one of the consequences of the pandemic: when we come across strangers in the streets, we all crave human interaction so much that some sort of spiritual dialogue is created without words being spoken. Since masks obstruct our mouths, our attitudes towards one another become less spontaneous and talkative but, we may still connect on an impalpable level.

In the roundabout of Friedrichstraße, a street that links the district of Mitte and Kreuzberg in central Berlin, I spotted a swallow of birds flying in unison towards a common horizon. One may personify what is happening in this scene. Like these birds, human beings move towards a telos, a word which means ‘an ultimate aim’ in ancient Greek. We are heading towards an end of history perhaps, or beyond it, if it has already happened, as some might think. There is something mysterious that we all seem to be drawn towards – death and freedom, maybe. Success and happiness are ephemeral, whereas death, and freedom in death may be eternal.  It is perhaps the perpetual quest for freedom that is deceiving in life: we may be fortunate enough to get a taste of it, but there is always something that hinders it. Like birds in the storm, the winds of life make us swirl, and our control of things is only ever partial. 

Boxhagener Platz or ‘Boxi’ as they call it here, is the place to be! In this picture, the place seems deserted, but hundreds stroll around here on Saturdays and Sundays to enjoy the local markets. One grabs a bite, a coffee, or artwork from an antiquarian… This place is varied and transformable, as we may witness in this picture. A young lady almost seems to be hiding behind a tree, with a bike by her side. I did not want to capture her face for two reasons: to preserve her identity and to focus on her hand, which may stand as a metonymy for the relationship that we increasingly foster to technology, be it willingly or unconsciously.

An embrace on an S-Bahn platform. These two lovebirds were unaware of the picture being taken, and I sought to capture their hug whilst keeping their faces anonymous. In the context of the pandemic, it is so rare to see people hugging. Tenderness has somehow faded away, and it is sadly more frequent to come across passive aggressive eyes above masked mouths than love and connection these days. Even though it is reasonable that we have to keep our distance, it is problematic that human warmth somehow fades away as these restrictions are reinforced in the pandemic.


The absent child and the jellyfish. In Berlin, one may even find street art for children! I was drawn to the colours and playfulness of this scene. It is as if the jellyfish were smiling at the pushchair, towards the invisible child that might soon come back from its nursery rhymes. This made me think about Peter Handke’s poem ‘Song of Childhood’, which is cited in Der Himmer over Berlin. ‘When the child was a child, it didn’t know that it was a child, everything was soulful, and all souls were one’, as Handke put it.

The Ampelmännchen. These traffic lights symbolise a by-gone communist East Berlin. Now, they are mascots of this city. There was something visually pleasing about the women’s green coat contrasting the colour of the man in light red. Since 2005, there are also feminine versions of these Ampelmännchen that we could call ‘Ampelfrauen’ – Man meaning man in German, and Frau woman! 

This picturesque setting has, in my view, a Hopperian touch. It made me think about Nighthawks, which echoes a strange, gloomy, and intriguing atmosphere. Two people might be catching up to drink a bier at dawn. Before lockdown, I could see many people casually walking around the city with biers in their hands, talking about all manner of meaningless things. I suppose we didn’t appreciate those fleeting moments when they were permitted.  In the case of this scene, I am imagining what might happen next, but what I loved about this sight is the mystery that it echoes. We can’t see the facial expressions of the man entering this curious place – is he delivering good news to his fellow human or bringing trouble? We can merely see the outline of the person behind the bay window – is it a man or a woman? A friend or an enemy? This image may be interpreted in many ways – like all images perhaps – and it could encapsulate a multitude of stories.

This alley is the succession of the historic Karl Marx Allee, which bridges the east to the west. We may look into the eyes of the past as we stride past typical GDR buildings, which have a uniform, greyish, and almost mournful facades. Vivid and warm colours now spill out of the windows, the palette of colours reverberating various moods, personalities, and lifestyles in this city.

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