The Layers of Berlin
2025.
50 x 25 cm
acrylic sheet, spray paint, aluminium, LED light tube, hardware
Visually, I was inspired by the cold industrial structures, ever-present graffiti, and nightlife surrounding the street of my studio, as the sentence “When I left the house, I saw…” for me refers to the closest and well-known environment.
My studio is interestingly located on the street of the iconic Tresor Berlin, a club that was the first to bring Detroit’s techno music to Europe in the ’90s. It sits right next to Kraftwerk, an industrial venue currently used for art exhibitions and events. Both reside in a former power station, and I could hardly name a better example of Berlin’s industrial history than this place. Defined by cold materials of steel and concrete, yet filled with pulsating energy for culture and cultural heritage. Not far from here is Køpi — a former squat legalized during the ’90s as an autonomous housing project and self-managed social centre connecting radical leftists, an important symbol for mostly punks, anarchists, and autonomist Marxists. Graffiti in the surroundings of Køpi, and in direct proximity to my studio, acts not only as a tool for self-expression but also as a way to communicate ideas about the resilience of its inhabitants to the world outside its gates.
For me as an artist, Berlin is a place with radiating energy and rich culture, a city of freedom, glowing with opportunities of all kinds. Yet there’s surely more to it than meets the eye. It’s also a city of silencing loud voices. A city where coldness is often much more apparent than warmth. Where we turn to the echoes of electronic music in the old industrial power plants just to feel connection. A place that sinks into collective melancholia during the greyest winters. And in the end, there is also a barrier that makes all the glowing opportunities so much harder to reach.
