The making of an absurd conspiracy theory, back in 1994. Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash Conspiracy theories are on the rise everywhere, and Germany is no exception. I recently talked about how QAnon is massive here, tapping into buried anti-semitic narratives, and uniting with the far-right Reichsbürger Movement, which believes that Germany is not a free democracy but a corporation set up by the allies after World War II with Merkel — or now Scholz, I guess — as a puppet leader. However, as with all systems of belief, there are many off-shoots and contradictions; Merkel mi ..read more

When the giant aquarium containing one million litres of water at Berlin’s Radisson Blu exploded last December, the fish weren’t the only victims. If you were there on the day, you’d have seen firefighters rescuing retro furniture too. These belonged to the neighbouring DDR Museum, which claims to have the largest collection of objects from the DDR, or East Germany. Entrance to the DDR Museum in Berlin Objects, like people and places, have their own histories, quirks, and stories to tell. Unfortunately for some of the objects in the museum that day, the aquarium’s saltwater made a permanent ma ..read more

A couple of weeks ago I was playing a theatre game in which you have to stand in the middle of a circle and answer questions in quick succession. “How middle class are you?” someone asked. Bernadine Evaristo with Joelle Taylor at Oyoun, Berlin for the British Council Lit Seminar 2023 “I guess pretty middle class, but I’m from an immigrant background, so it’s complicated,” I fumbled, before moving on to the next question. However, the question stayed with me for the rest of the week. I’m a writer, and I live a very middle class life. I play theatre games in a studio once a week for Christ’s sak ..read more

The Daimler Art Collection is hard to find. We walked past it twice before spotting the little door that led to it. You have to ring the bell and then the door opens by itself. We went up in the small lift not knowing what to expect and quite confused before reaching the gallery, which was completely silent. There was nobody else there which is probably the result of its hidden location. The current exhibition is ‘Visions of Exchange’ which focuses on different perspectives of Berlin and Tokyo and includes paintings, videos, sculptures and photos. One of the first things you notice is a 3D pe ..read more

October in Berlin: Two experiences that centred around the importance of storytelling. The Israeli writer Etgar Keret’s new exhibition Inside Out at the Jewish Museum Berlin features the following quotation: “It’s much harder for people to deny your humanity when you speak their language.” I would modify that slightly to say: It’s much harder for people to deny your humanity when they hear your stories. Inside Out Etgar Keret at The Jewish Museum Berlin In Jewish culture, an ancient tradition stems from the Exodus verse, “And you shall tell your children.” Every Jewish person is obliged to rel ..read more

“Berlin ist vorbei,” says Andreas Jeromin, a former Berlin squatter. It’s a phrase we hear often. Berlin is over. The coolest, most creative time the city had ever experienced, just after the fall of the wall in the 1990s, is long gone. But the current exhibition at the Alte Münze attempts to revisit the era with Nineties Berlin. The Alte Münze seems like a good choice for such an undertaking. The former mint factory now serves as a blank canvas that is regularly repurposed for different events and exhibitions, much like the morphing and the repurposing of old and abandoned spa ..read more

Last night, I had the pleasure of seeing Pi, a modern dance performance at Pfefferberg Theatre. There is something about bodies moving through space in exceptional ways that is both delightful, energising and emotional — and this performance was no different. Anna Holmström performs performs Debris As a writer, it always takes me a few minutes to let go of questions of narrative and story and enter the flow of the piece. But choreographer Anna Holmström does an artful job in creating a structured and engaging performance that expresses different characters, theme and conflict through movement ..read more