Berlin Day 7

Today we were enlightened by the rare, if not once-in-a-lifetime, experiences: visiting the Berlin Jewish Museum, meeting artist Ai Weiwei, and meeting Lydia Schamschula, who co-directed the documentary A Step Without Feet that we screened in Garland Theatre at Poly this past February.

Let us begin with the Jewish Museum. As you trek your wet shoes into the lobby, you'll walk into a brightly lit room with buttercream walls (the original building was finished in 1908) and a contemporary large, yarn-like sculpture hanging from above. From there, you'll continue down a long flight of stairs into the Axis of Exile, one of three axes that intersect here, where the walls slant inwards, the floor slants upwards, and the ceiling is painted black, creating the illusion of a never-ending tunnel, seemingly closing in on you the farther you walk. At the end is "The Garden of Exile". From there, you can walk the Axis of the Holocaust into the "Holocaust Tower", an angular empty cement room with a triangulated footprint with extremely high walls. The room isn't climate controlled and is completely dark except for a small slit of an opening near the top of this five-story open expanse that lets in just a sliver of light. The ceiling here is also painted black creating, creating yet another illusion that you are at the bottom of a hole.

In the Memory Void, you'll walk over plates of metal, each with a human face expressing pain staring back up at you. The clanking of the metal as you walk over this sea of emotes recalls the sounds of the forced labor people endured in the concentration camps. When we walked back out of this space of intense affect, we ascending a steep staircase, the Axis of Continuity, and explored the rest of the exhibit which covers Jewish history, music, literature, the slow rise of laws targeting people of Jewish descent during the years of National Socialism all in an incredibly thoughtful and intentional way. One of our favorite areas was a music pod surrounded my colored chains and painted pink, where we could select and listen to songs from an extension playlist of traditional Hebrew music.

After the Jewish Museum, we had the opportunity to meet and converse with contemporary artist Ai Weiwei. (You might be thinking "No way!," but, yes, we really did meet him.) When we entered his studio, it initially seemed like an old garage. Turns out, we were walking through a century-old wartime prison as we clomped down a cobblestone set of stairs into the subterranian building. After a long, windy, dark path, we entered a sunlit patio floored in blue tiles and a oblong oculus that looks up to the sky above. Looking up, we could not help but recognize the poetry in this framing of free floating clouds and blue sky after the dark hole of the "Holocaust Tower" earlier. This courtyard gives way to the renovated studio. Old bricks loomed about fifty feet above us in an arched, echoey, and lit-up room where we met Weiwei.

Weiwei began by explaining his decision to renovate the wartime space into his studio because he likes to "solve problems." We then sat down around two long tables, where we asked him questions for over and hour. When we asked him why he chose to live in Berlin, he surprised us by saying he disliked Berlin (except for the summer weather). He also told us that he didn't consider himself "creative" and he didn't like to think of his work "being inspired," instead, he said he just "makes things happen." During our conversation, we learned a little bit more about his background, including his protesting the Chinese government not revealing information about the deaths of college students after an earthquake and that he spent 81 days in prison for thereafter.

We toured his studio, where he showed us a display of over 9,000 different types of buttons, a marvel I'm sure nobody has or will ever see in their lifetime.

Weiwei also described the aforementioned hand-painted blue tiles on his outdoor patio, which depict an allover composition of sunflowers, a motif present in propaganda representative of Mao Zedong's Subjects during Cultural Revolution he grew within as well as a much more personal, warm memory of the sunflower being a snack to share among friends in China, even among the poorest of citizens. Each tile was painted by hand by the same craftspeople who made one of his most famous artworks, "Kui Hua Zi (Sunflower Seeds)" first installed in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern in London, making each one-of-a-kind.

At the end of our time together, we took an amazing photo on these sunflower seed tiles with a proud and happy Weiwei.

Our last engagement of the day was meeting the inspirational Lydia Schamschula who co-directed A Step Without Feet, a documentary about Syrian refugees living in Berlin. Before we met Lydia, though, we went to a German store that is akin to Target or Walmart and got a Berliner, the Berlin dessert made famous by the speech given by John F. Kennedy in Berlin, June of 1963.

We walked across the street to a gorgeous, picture perfect park with green grass, full trees, and a golden sun looking down.

We made our way to a recognizable pavilion, under which one of the Syrian refugees danced in the documentary, but since it was already occupied by another group, we we sat on some nearby benches as we waited to meet Lydia. A few minutes later, a kind woman came up to Adam and began talking to him. We then were introduced to Lydia, who excitedly began talking to us about her experience as a filmmaker. We decided to sit in a circle on the grass adjacent to the pavilion and set up a camera to record our dialogue. (We hope to use the footage in an exhibition or showcase of our travels when we get back next fall). We talked for almost two hours, discussing different issues related to immigration, Berlin as place of welcome and antagonism, allyship, and our own hopes and ambitions in life.

Afterward, Lydia suggested a great Italian place, where we headed for dinner. We took a streetcar to the restaurant, where we ate our Neopolitan-style pizza and talked for another 1.5 hours. We had a great time enjoying one of our last nights all together.