Trespassing

We're going on a bear hunt.

We're going to catch a big one.

What a beautiful day!

We're not scared.

What is it about abandoned buildings that make them so addictive?

Why are smashed in windows, derelict stairs, and peeling wallpaper so magical?

Part of it is that child-like feeling of discovery, like you're going on an adventure. There's nothing better than seeing a sunny sky on a lazy Saturday, and deciding to spend it climbing over walls and sitting on rooftops. I love the Spytowers of Teufelsberg and the ghostly Spreepark. Kreuzberg is full of crumbling walls and empty factories. But Bärenquell Brauerei (Bären=bears, quell=source and Brauerei=brewery) has quite a magic of its own.

For a start, its huge. I've been there twice now, and haven't even begun on the cellars. You can get lost in this place. The rooms range from giant warehouses cut through with slanting sunlight, to tiny bedrooms complete with gold posted beds. There are ladders and spiral staircases. There are engine rooms, laboratories, a mill, a giant swing, a princess tower with panoramic views of Berlin. Rooms carpeted with the old labels of beers from another age. Brewing secrets locked in dusty bottles with faded labels.

I don't really like taking photographs (though I do like having them) and I'm not very good at it either but here are a few:

As a further note, I found this video that has been made of the place. Much better photography.

S(trick)-Bahn

Some videos, some photos, some articles...

Photos and film, all credit to brilliant Mira, Johannes and Lukas.

Furios - student magazine at the FU

Bild Zeitung. Words cannot express.

A standard u-bahn carriage, without wool.

Measuring

Serious business.

Caught on CCTV

Post-Aktion breakfast, admiring our handiwork.

Das Ende!

Stricken, Scrabble und Sonnenschein

As a few people have pointed out, I haven't written an update since January. I'm just a bit crap really, but with 16000 words of essay to write before April this is kind of justifiable procrastination. My most recent tales of Berlin generally sound like this: library, library, library, cook food, talk tangentially about anything and everything, sleep then library library...

So my life otherwise. The sun has appeared (!). Temperatures are now holding a steady 10 grad, and this city's monotone grey has turned a flawless blue. March has been particularly beautiful. One afternoon a few weeks ago, in the -6° but brilliant sunshine, I met a friend in the park and decided winter was finished. Equipped with hot water bottles under jumpers, blankets to get lost in, tea and chocolate to survive a winter, we set out the board and played scrabble (auf Deutsch, natürlich). You could almost kid yourself it was summer. It was quite, quite perfect.

Other significant news is that of the S(trick)-Bahn. Armed with crochet needles, a woolly bearded team of 15 gathered in a Monday morning's half light to stitch up the train. A complete carriage, every pole, stitched with its own cosy. A multi coloured, squishy explosion of wool.

It was ridiculously good fun. Mira, Mara and I had knitted 41 metres of long thin scarves since November (you have probably seen me somewhere, everywhere, knitting obsessively) in all sorts of colours and patterns. Why? Why not. We had all sorts of vaguely pretentious reasons - feminising guerrilla art, turning street art into slow art, making some sort of statement or another. But I think the most important reason is to make commuters smile in the morning and look a little differently at what's around them. Because it is ridiculous really. It's decadent, that we live in world that allows us to spend months knitting for a project that lasts half a day. But that's kind of what makes it brilliant, it's no more insane than all the absurdity in this world, so we might as well laugh at it.

It lasted till around 4pm. But afterwards we would find photos of our project posted by strangers on the internet, overheard other commuters talking about it on the train. A student journalist talked to the BVG official who took it down. Was it art? He asked. No of course not, it was vandalism, it was dangerous. Woolly pole cosys were dangerous. I'm not sure he really got it.

Right. That's part one of my update. I'll put some more stuff up in a tic.

Some Guerrilla knitting links, for Stitchers and Bitchers in:

Berlin

France

Everywhere

Some Faces and Abandoned Places

A few from last August/September, 2010. They have finally made it onto a computer, and now to the internet.