BERLIN Day 3 - 4th May 2018

Day 3

More Exploring

Like on the first day, as a little group, we had decided to just do a bit more exploring of central Berlin, heading out in a different direction than we had on the first day. We stumbled upon a cute little area which seemed to be more closed off from the city life and busy roads, it had lots of cute little buildings and shops, bars and cafes, and there was a lot of hanging display signs outside of them, which just seemed to give the area more character. In this area, we had found a statue of someone slaying a dragon, this piece was so beautiful, as it had captured so much life within the frozen moment. I personally love statues (as you will find out throughout this blog post), I think they are so beautiful and have an Italian Renaissance style to them, as the figures are so angelic and soft, even when they're in battle scenes, such as this statue.
On our way back to the centre, when we were going back to meet some more of our friends so that we could go to some of the places on the character walk together, we had found a corgi named Winny. Throughout the trip, my friend named Beth had been wanting to see a corgi, especially with the number of dogs we had seen in Berlin already, so on our last full day, we were all happy that she finally got to see one today. We didn't actually expect that we would be able to pet this corgi, however when its owner had heard us all gasping and 'awwing' at her dog, she asked if we wanted to pet him, so we were all so excited (we were also glad that she spoke English). His name was Winny and he was the cutest dog we had seen on this trip, when I had knelt down to give him a stroke, he climbed up on my knee, but wasn't too jumpy and I was in love with him (I wanted to steal him but his owner was so nice to us), it had just shown me how much calmer the dogs in Berlin are compared to the ones at home, as the ones I have met seem to be so hyper, although we have gone to a lot of exhibitions today, he was still my favourite part and I'm generally a cat person.

Character Walk

Meeting up with our friends, the first place we travelled to was number 1 on the map. We had gotten a little confused with this exhibition, as the place was within a graveyard, so we ended up passing the building in which we were supposed to go into, and ended up unintentionally exploring the graveyard instead. As I had said before, I love statues because of their angelic nature, so I did take quite a few photos of some of the figures. I tried to remain respectful of the dead whilst I was there, I didn't want to take many photos of the actual graves, apart from one which was close to the entrance. This had intrigued me as it looked as if it had a football kicked and stuck in the centre of the slab. It had made me question who this person was, and the story behind this choice.
So once we had actually found the exhibition, which was inside of a creepy building, that I just loved, we had found the work of Ged Sia & Jogo, Victor Castillo and Moki.
When entering, straight away, I saw the work of Victor Castillo, whose exhibit was entitled 'Jungle Boogie' and had shown his recognisable characters with the hollow eyes and red Pinocchio styled noses.
Going around, we then found the work of Ged Sia & Jogo, which was entitled 'Deadly Seduction'. They had created work which appeared to be creatures engulfing other figures, these creatures did look like frogs, but didn't exactly have the eyes of them. My favourite piece was named Geisha, and I liked it because it had reminded me of the character 'no-face' from spirited away, one of my favourite studio ghibli movies. 
Upstairs, was Moki's exhibition, by the name of 'Swamp Land'. In each room, you could find their work, from sequential pieces spread across the walls, singular illustrations and amazing installations, for instance, the huge many-legged character which was hanging from the ceiling in one of the rooms.
I loved this exhibition as a whole, because other than the amazing work I had seen, the setting in itself stimulated all of the senses, you could smell it, see all of the deteriorating textures, hear the creaking of the floorboards, it was just amazing and I would never have expected to attend this when coming to Berlin.

Leaving this exhibition, we then headed to number 2 on the character walk, which was the Moomin exhibition, Moomins on the Riviera. I was partially expecting more from this exhibition, as it had been the most talked about before the trip, so I was expecting to see more than just one room of work, this being said, however, it was amazing to see the original sketches and drawings for the Moomin characters and how it had developed. I just think it was less exciting than the previous exhibition had been.

From here, we then visited number 6 on the map, which was the work of Matt Jones. This space was very little but the contents were very cute in a way, especially the artists 'Lunartik in a Cup of Tea' vinyl toys, as they were so tiny, and the big features made them adorable. I also enjoyed his other vinyl toys, which had all been influenced by tv shows and movies, for instance, he had created characters from Alien, Game of Thrones, Edward Scissor Hands, and the list does go on. These figures were for sale, and a few of my friends had bought their own, I, however, did not because the faces were a bit too realistic, and did creep me out a little, but I could still respect Matt Jones's craft.

Next place we went to, was number 7 on the map, the Character Face-Off competition in which Pictoplasma had hosted, in which various artists had created a character portrait in their own style. These characters were then taken and exhibited in this space. I enjoyed this exhibition as it shown where participation in Pictoplasma's call for entries could take you. It has inspired me to take part in more in the future and in this exhibition, they had mentioned that the next challenge would be announced on the 23rd of May on project1324.com, so I am excited for that.

The last exhibition we had gone to was number 5 on the map, Neurotita, which had included the work of James Curran, Kevin Gemin's and Jim Stoten. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take any photos within this exhibition, so the photos to the right were of the building, and some of the graffiti from the area.
James Curran had created a live 'gifathon' of all of his animations, which were so beautifully created, as they looped so smoothly and were so aesthetically pleasing, I could have just sat and watched for ages, lost in the trance. Kevin Gemin's exhibition was entitled 'expressions', and he had shown his 2D animations, that he had actually created within the Flipnote Studio on the DSi/3DS. I have seen his work before some time ago on Facebook, in which he had created birds dancing in time to the 'Can-Can' song, you can find the video on youtube under the name 'French CanCan! Animation'. His work is so light and joyful that it just makes you happy yourself when watching it. In the past, I had used this program myself, but my creations were nowhere near as smooth or as well done as Gemin's work is, so I am so amazed and it makes me feel somewhat nostalgic as it has been such a long time since I last used my DSi.
Out of sheer exhaustion, from walking to and around these exhibitions all day, I can't really remember the work of Jim Stoten 'My Important Drawings', or Cachetejack 'Think twice before...'. I think I can remember the vibrant colours within Jim Stoten's pieces, but I believe I was so desperate to find a seat after walking around, that I did not spend a lot of time within their part of the exhibition.

As everyone had seen all of the exhibitions that they wanted to, and I do believe that we had managed to visit a lot of the places within the space of a day, we were all exhausted by the final one, so we decided to retreat back to the hostel, before the night's antics. 

Final Meal

As the tutors had planned for the whole group to go out for a meal, because it was the final day, as a course, we had decided that we wanted to go somewhere else on our own, as opposed to going out with the overall group. We would however still meet up with everyone afterwards for drinks to celebrate our week and final day in Berlin.
So our group decided to go to a sixties dinner themed restaurant by the name of 'Sixties' for our final meal. I felt we all had a laugh and I felt the experience brought us all together more as a group.
Once we were done, as we had agreed with the tutors, we met back up with the other courses and teachers for a couple of drinks, I even had a laugh with some of the first years who I had never spoken to, but found out were really nice people! I had a couple of drinks but then decided to retreat back to the hostel, as I knew I would have a lot to pack and I did not want to stress too much in the morning, as we do have to check out by 10.