I just got back from my trip to Berlin and Reykjavik late last night, so instead of the usual themed essay post, I’m sharing some photos from my travels (and listening to the new Beyoncé album). My hope for this trip was to replenish the creative well with different perspectives and sources of inspiration, and I came back with more than I expected. I’m letting those ideas marinate now, and I’m excited to write more about them next month.
During this trip, I went to eight art museums—the highlight was experiencing the 12th Berlin Biannale, which took place over multiple sites across the city. (More to come later!) My friend and I loved the street art in both cities, which filled each unassuming alley, tunnel, and street corner we encountered with a kind of serendipity. Early into the trip, I had this idea of capturing the joy of happening upon the unexpected—walking past walls and feeling completely overcome by the delight of colors, shapes, lines, scrawls, and compositions. These moments ripped us away from the point A to B paths we previously navigated on our phones while on hotel Wi-Fi and pulled us into spontaneous routes towards the city’s visual conversations. The layers of graffiti tags felt like artists yelling over each other, trying to express meaning with the shapes of words, but not words themselves.
On the flight back, I thought about the joy I felt just looking. Observing. Watching. There is such a pleasure in wandering through a city, taking it all in. Charles Baudelaire, and later, Walter Benjamin, wrote extensively about the flâneur, a figure that emerged as a ”passionate observer” in 19th Century Paris, who strolled around the city, enchanted by absorbing the urban experience. Baudelaire describes the feeling of the flâneur as:
“…an immense pleasure to take up residence in multiplicity, in whatever is seething, moving, evanescent and infinite: you're not at home, but you feel at home everywhere; you see everyone, you're at the centre of everything yet you remain hidden from everybody —these are just a few of the minor pleasures of those independent, passionate, impartial minds whom language can only awkwardly define.”
I appreciated feeling this kind of anonymity on this trip—seeing the city but not being seen by the city. I felt very spacey the whole time traveling, as if all of my other senses decided to commit their energies towards enhancing my sight perception.
A few years ago, a friend gave me Edmund White’s book, The Flâneur. He quotes Baudelaire as comparing the flâneur to:
“…a mirror as huge as the crowd - or to a kaleidoscope outfitted with a consciousness that at every shake of the tube copies the configuration of multifarious life and the graceful movement of all its elements.”
Mirrors and kaleidoscopes are ubiquitous objects yet fascinating tools for abstraction—contained ways for investigating angles, creating facets, juxtaposing perspectives, and imagining depths. I thought about this quotation while walking through Berlin, visiting different museums, noticing the architecture from different vantage points, noting the ways people interacted in unfamiliar spaces to me, learning the histories of communities past and present, collecting photos of signs and brochures with cool typography, connecting subway maps to our walking routes, indulging in the detours towards graffiti and murals, interpreting languages I didn’t understand, and bouncing ideas and impressions of these experiences with my friend.
I kept my streak of doing something creative everyday throughout the trip, mostly quick sketches at meals or museums. On every trip I take, I always bring at least one sketchbook with me. There are many ways you can get to know a place—like the flâneur, observing and moving through space. For me, spending a few elongated moments drawing opens a lot of connections. Intimacy is attuning yourself to the details. Drawing is observing in 3D, filtering it through your mind, and reflecting it back on paper in 2D. What abstractions occur when the mind also becomes a mirror and a kaleidoscope?
Finally, a huge thank you to my best friend and travel partner Kelin Hall for this wonderful trip, for taking these photos, and especially for her patience as I “art directed” the shots. (Ha! She’s a real one for sure.)
It’s the end of the month, which usually means a new volume soon, but I still have more to write with regard to July’s theme of hip hop, museums, and the implications of context. I’m giving myself an extension through August, and will also write more about all the amazing art I experienced on this trip.
Thanks for reading.
How delightful to see you, Elspeth! Love the duplication: So creative.
I love this - Berlin is such an amazing city, and the flaneur piece is fascinating. I don't know Iceland at all, but definitely on my wish list. Thanks for sharing.