Berlin postcards

Today I went to an exhibition space where in a large room there are several cars (around 15) and a large screen. It is free, you just make a reservation and sit inside the car (max 2 people) and you can see some video art. Actually it is a really neat idea, comfy and fun. The program is really wide, today I saw a work from the american artist Kerry Tribe and was quite good. My friend S. and I booked a car for next Tuesday. These are the kind of things that I guess make Berlin special. The autocinema (which is the right term in english?) is on a temporary art space in Berlin Mitte, that is Berlin´s historical downtown and former East Berlin. Normally I am not very fond of Mitte, but I have to accept that it is quite an impressive area although in a desolate kind of way. So today´s drawings are a view of the TV tower - the former east Berlin 70´s idea of modernity, which is actually a hybrid between a disco ball and a lollipop, but it has become an icon for the city and one ends up liking it. And whenever I am in the U Bahn (subway) I like looking at people and there is a characteristic winter style for Berlin students and for young modern turkish women. As for the german young women, it always surprises me the size of their scarves and how they manage to twist this mass around their necks and still look that they do have a neck. As for some turkish girls, they seem to love the yellow and black combination all year round, big, big hairdoes, loads of makeup and amazingly arched and neat eyebrows.

 

  

 

There is so much material to portray people in Berlin, the styles are varied, but quite indentifiable. The old german women, the old muslim women, the punks with their dogs, the drunken in their camouflage pants and mullets and caps, the shabby - poor but sexy - chic young people, the expensively shabby well off young mothers. Sometimes I look at my clothes and I find them so boring and normal! but somehow thinking of wearing necklaces, makeup, or showy colorful things makes me feel like I am wearing a custom - maybe when summer comes. But I guess these undifined clothes of mine which do not make a statement, reflect a bit my present state. I feel safe in the anonimity, I feel protected in the blending in. I do not feel ready to show up so to say, I do not know yet who I am , who I am becoming. Because I am coming to something new, to a whole new time in my life, a redefinition of my identity - I guess this is what means to be 40 already?? It is like the Valia I was until now has expired and I feel something in me that signals that another woman will come out, sometime, somehow. It is not being easy, I have cried, I still get depressed but it is an amazing opportunity to reinvent myself.