The Labyrinth - Peristal Singum

I waited for my new friend, A, for a half hour sitting at the bar at Salon zur Wilden Renate. She had gotten lost; her iPhone had her to go somewhere near Rigaer Strasse rather than to Alt-Stralau 70, near the Treptow Park S-Bahn. We are going to visit Peristal Singum, the art project / labyrinth built in connection to Renate. I've heard it's disturbing and cool, and I'm very curious, A's excited. At the bar a girl asks me if I was already in the labyrinth. "I was going to go, but as my friend was going in she saw a girl crying inside the doors, so we didn't want to go anymore," she says.

A arrives and we are sit in front of a fire place, holding giant golden coins, waiting. I finish my small bottle of Pilsner Urquell and get invited to follow a girl wearing a Davy Crockett style coonskin hat. I leave my bag and scarf behind the bar. I keep my winter jacket on – I don't want to get lost in a labyrinth and be cold, too. I'm a bit nervous. She ties a scarf around my head to cover my eyes. She makes sure I have my gold coin as she slowly leads me to the entrance. She speaks softly and tells me to forget my stress and worries and to stay in "there" as long as I want to. "So it's my happy place, then?" I laugh dryly.

After I insert my coin in the door it takes me embarrassingly long to figure out how to actually enter the Peristal Singum. I can't be sure if I'm feeling excited or scared. I hurry my steps. I try to smile to encourage myself. I walk through hallways bedecked with scruffy collages of old wallpaper, painting and pictures and am lead to a hole. I have to kneel down to look into it – but it's dark and it twists in a downward spiral. I realise it's a slide and that I have no choice but to ride it.

I don't want to describe my Peristal Singum experience in detail, as not to ruin it for anyone. After the slide came more dark holes, pits and narrow corridors. I definitively had to push myself. I felt claustrophobic not knowing where the exit was and how long it would take to find it. I wanted out. I crawled through a tunnel and poked my head out and found my friend A. With her excitement and the light from her iPhone we faced the pits, tunnels and the darkness together. When we found the exit all I could think about was the bar and having a shot of vodka, but A wanted to keep exploring all the routes and doorways we didn't try yet. Knowing where the exit was made things easier.

Back at the bar, after a shot of Stolichnaya each, A reckoned it was a pity that she didn't have a chance to be alone in there – she missed the core of the installation: discomfort and endurance.

It costs €10 to enter the labyrinth. Only one person can enter at a time. You can't book a ticket in advance, you just show up and express interest.

Sunday at Stroke.Artfair 2011

Today we had to admit that we need to turn on the heating in the apartment. Even for just a few hours per day. It's cold. I'm wearing mittens when I cycle to work. But the sun has been shining a lot and the trees still have most of their leaves, so it's not feeling too grim.

Today we slept in – it feels like we haven't seen each other for ages – so we just laid there and chatted and laughed until it was already well into the afternoon. A made us breakfast sandwiches from the insanely good carrot and walnut bread we ordered with our organic veggies.

The only goal of the day was to make it to the urban art fair, Stroke.Artfair 2011, at Postbahnhof. It was on the whole weekend, but since A is building a new studio space with T, he's been busy playing Bob the Builder. Probably because it was the last hours of the art fair, it was packed. I found it impossible to concentrate on any of the graffiti, illustrations, comics or graphic design pieces on display because of the bustle: people kept scurrying past between the paintings and me, and there was no space to step back and really look at anything. It was a pity, because there was a lot to look at. Maybe next year we should try to get out of bed a little earlier...

ROA in Berlin

Last week I was in a lot of pain and I went to the doctor again on Friday. I got prescribed more ibuprofen for what apparently was inflamed muscles over my ribs – from all the coughing. As a result I didn't use my free tickets to the annual Preview Berlin and I declined the opportunity to be sneaked in to Berlin Festival, but tried to take it easy and rest a bit. A decision I slightly regret.

On Sunday I, none the less, went to the finissage of the small Skalitzers Contemporary Art gallery in Kreuzberg who were showing an insanely cool collection of art from their 2011 artists. I wanted to see the incredible work by ROA, Belgian street artist extraordinaire. After the gallery visit we decided to go across the street to view some more of ROA's work: at the bottom of a sand pit, the very Pippi Longstocking-esque biergarten called Kjosk (at the corner of Oranienstraße and Skalitzer Straße), is defined by a white brick wall covered in large, black, hand-painted, dead animals. They're very impressive and make this makeshift biergarten worth a visit; we enjoyed a good chat and a cold OBC – Original Berlin Cidre.

Later I also ate at Yellow Sunshine on Wiener Straße for the first time, and in my slightly hung over state their Lappland Cheese Burger was just the best fake-meat burger I've ever had... Mmmm...

Betahaus

Two weeks ago, at the Screen Print Festival 2011 in Stattbad Wedding, our new friend R told E and me about Open Design City, a space in Kreuzberg where you can rent tools and appliances and get help for your more ambitious design projects. We were particularly interested in screen printing possibilities, but also curious to know what other things can be made there, like with laser cutters or soldering equipment.

The ODC is a part of Betahaus, so to familiarise with ODC you have to go on a tour of Betahaus, a shared office space where you can rent a desk by the day or by the month. Tours are available twice a week and are free of charge. I now know three people who work there, so I was curious to see what it's like.

E and I were on time like proper Finns tend to be – R was nowhere to be seen. Later I saw her message on Facebook, saying she'd been held back at the office.

Betahaus is very impressive: it's big, it's airy, it's light. If it wouldn't sound so corny, I'd describe it as an inspiring environment. The Open Design City space, on the other hand, seemed small. There was no one there to explain precisely what tools are available and what the possibilities there are, so that part of the tour was very disappointing.

As we sat down in the downstairs café afterwards, an American girl who'd also been on the tour asked to join us. We had a nice chat among graphic designers and as we were leaving AS wanted us to reveal which guy from the guided tour we would date if we HAD to. She was quite taken with the amount of cute guys she spotted at the premises. We made diffuse plans to meet up at an art gallery later in the week – so if nothing else, I made another friend today!

Culture at the pool

Yesterday E and I popped by the Screenprint Festival in Stattbad Wedding. It was the second day of the festival and we arrived late, so there wasn't as much enthusiasm floating around as there probably was on Saturday. Some cool posters and printed items were on sale in the shop, we saw a live screen printing exhibit, there were dj's, pizza and drinks. The event will become annual, we were told, so next year we'll try to make it there earlier! While watching the printing at the bottom of the swimming pool and sipping on our (free!) Jägermeister cocktails (who knew Jägermeister can be made into a delicious drink?!) a German girl came up and started talking to us. She told us about other similar events going on and at the S-Bahn station, on our way home, we exchanged phone numbers. So it might be a very artsy and craftsy winter!

Sunday stroll

Last night A convinced me that even if I wasn't feeling my best, to leave the house would make me feel a little bit better. He was right, because as we strolled along the Open Air Gallery lane on Oberbaumbrücke, we happened to catch another event happening in Berlin; Aquarella Berlin, floating on the Spree.

 

Art about waves and art on the bridge

I got to take this really pretty poster home from the office, and I'm so inspired by it that I want to go to Martin-Gropius-Bau to see the whole Hokusai retrospective! Art is in the air: this Sunday is the second Open Air Gallery of the summer and the Oberbaumbrücke closes for traffic and opens for artists, galleries and music, and I'll definitively make my Sunday stroll go over the bridge!

Crazy pottery and fair t-shirts

I actually wanted to go see crazy tea cups and teapots at the Strychnin Gallery on Boxhagener Straße, but it turned out that the Mad Potter's Tea Party only opens tonight and so they didn't really appreciate us strolling in mid-opening night preparations. R, who's visiting her old home town this weekend, and I were kindly invited to come by tonight instead, when the exhibition is set up and free drinks are served.

So we went for a coffee instead.

When strolling homeward along Simon-Dach-Straße, I noticed a new (?), interesting shop: Simonuno (boring website alert!). I thought it was called "Du bist schön", because that's the biggest text on the shop window. Anyway, they sell Fair Trade and organic t-shirts, hoodies and sneakers for pretty fair prices. The plain t-shirts are €16 and the ones with a print are €26. I see myself buying the cool, Berlin-themed prints as presents, for sure! I always think that Fair Trade and organic cotton feels much softer and nicer than regular cotton, too.

Closing time

Today was the opening of the last show at MMX, one of my favourite (= they have a bar) Berlin galleries. Apparently it was always just going to be a one year project, and now a year has passed. The art itself was a bit random, except for a funny video piece of Germans telling jokes and a video installation featuring Katharine Hepburn making coffee, but the atmosphere was great. Another thing that drew me to MMX tonight was the Taco Truck, that I had hear great things about, but never managed to catch. I had a good veggie taco, my friend P a chicken one – but is two euro a bit much for such a tiny thing? I don't know, but it sure was tasty!

The flatmate experiment is going pretty well, albeit it's only day 2. P and I have been seeing a lot of each other, but how could I go off gallivanting and not invite her to come along? I do have to confess that I find it great that she has her own plans for the whole weekend... Me too: tomorrow's I'm checking out the monthly midnight flea market (€3 entry) with "the Finns" and on Sunday it's Irish Halloween with traditional apple bobbing, a scary film and pumpkin soup at D&M's house. Ich freu mich!

October: Art month

I'm lucky because occasionally I get freebies through work and today we got to check out one of Berlin's October art fairs, Preview Berlin without having to pay the €10 entrance fee. This weekend there are six simultaneous art fairs in Berlin (!): Art Forum, Art Berlin Contemporary, Preview Berlin, Kunstsalon, Berliner Liste and Stroke.Artfair.

After a lovely Austrian breakfast with S and D in Marketta's Greisslerei we cycled to Kreuzberg in the lovely autumn weather. I enjoy passing through the touristy areas of Berlin (Museum Sinsel, Unter den Linden, Friedrichstraße...) once in a while to remind myself of the grandeur and beauty of the city, and to watch the tourists as they are experiencing their own version of Berlin. We very rarely have a reason to be in that part of town and I always get the same feeling: "I can't believe this is the city that I live in!".

Preview Berlin is held in Hangar 2 in Tempelhof, a former airport, and calls itself "the emerging art fair". There were some pretty cool things, some pretty weird things and some pretty boring things on display. I'm not sure if ten euro would have been very good value for us non-art-connoisseurs for a one hour stroll around the hangar....

Artsy with a side of beer

I haven't been to very many art galleries in Berlin yet; I need to find someone to go with. A doesn't hate it, but exhibitions are also not his favourite. So far the best place I have found to enjoy art is MMX Open Art Venue, a gallery on Linienstraße in Mitte. We had a work related event there a few months back, and last Friday we met there for the opening of "Show IV" with S and a few interns from the office. I was most impressed by a video piece called Papillon d'Amour by Nicolas Provost and a really clever little installation with string in the backyard, called Stiller, by Michael Ebert. The trick is to know that the gallery has many more rooms than you think so you don't miss out. They also have a great garden and a bar, and so in true Berlin style you can enjoy the art while drinking your beer from a bottle. There's membership fee of one euro to get in, and the opening hours are a bit finicky, but I still like it.