Berlin is foreign. Berlin is new. Berlin speaks to me in voices that I do not yet understand. It is loud, and alienating, and frustratingly unfamiliar. German signs and words are thrown at me left and right, clouding my surroundings and ensuring that I am merely an observer incapable of deciphering the simplest of phrases.
CategoryStudent Life
On drift: The Drifting Text-Based Performance Series
cherub henry and Sam Harper moved to Berlin from New Zealand via London almost eight years ago. They now both study under Hito Steyerl at Berlin University of the Arts, and cherub works as a sex worker. In the summer of 2019, they together founded a series of text-based performances called drift. drift is an
From the Archives: Reflections on Writing
Die Bärliner revisits some of our favorite pieces on the topic of writing; students explore different writing processes, approaches, and why they write. From political and advocacy journalism to faculty interviews, reflections from BCB student writing tutors to creative writing in times of Covid-19 uncertainty, we invite you to look back on what our authors
Monet’s Summer
I stand before a summer day. Softer, warmer, brighter than the day I’m in. Monet’s vertical canvas, the object of my looking, dissolves, and I am left in space itself. Nature can be this for the mind, a tabula rasa. Hm… I’m not frightened by the vastness, the entrance is not a jolt or a
Knead & Other Selections
Knead… the earth with rain, and let it fain the glaring lips of the sun. Knead the earth. Pour your mortar among molded bricks and molten sand. Knead the earth, and erect your dwellings high. For like the shrub pierces the womb and sprouts from the face of Mother, you, too, shall wreak ruin. Reign
Bonfire Night
“Remember, remember the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot. We see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot!” The first verse of this nursery rhyme rings in my ears as clearly as it did the day my mother taught it to me. And this song returns once a year, as she and
Memories on the Train
On the train I move at birdish speeds. I see buildings blur into living embers, points stretched into foreign conversation and foreign frames and the infinity of presence upon my sight. And the train too is looking, spawns a second set of eyes, mirrors me in its glass. My doppelgänger in the window glides in
The Best (socially distanced) Study Spots in Berlin
In the midst of Mumbai’s scorching hot summer under a strict COVID-19 lockdown, I found myself longing for an M1 tram ride across Berlin. So much so, that I started watching eight-minute long YouTube videos of the M1 tram going from Pastor Niemöller Platz to Am Kupfergraben on loop. This longing also prompted me to