Berlin
A series of interviews, and photographic study conducted by Mila Figuet
Parisian photographer Mila Figuet took a year off to explore Berlin. This series is a peek at the amazing creatives she met on her trip. Each of them discusses their respective interests, situating their work in the times we live in today. Figuet questions gender roles, and feminism schools, and exchanges about her subjects upon the evolution of our culture in various fields.
"I'm proud to introduce you to a bunch of badass I've met during this year of exploration. I'm so glad I had the chance to discuss art and the multiple faces of womanhood with such open minded, and talented girls. Meeting them was so rewarding and working on this article was a really cool way to say goodbye to this city I fell in love with"
Ariel Cotton
Mila Figuet: Who are you? Give us some background information about how you got into drawing.
Ariel Cotton: I’m Ariel, I’m from New York. I make comics, interactive art and UX design but this year I’ve been focusing mostly on comics. I think I’ve always been creating work, for as long as I can remember. And drawing comics specifically, I think it started when I started to read graphic novels when I was younger. I also got really into Judie Bloom when I was in middle school. She’s an author who wrote lots of really famous young adults/teenager books and they were all really relatable, and dealt with lots of very realistic issues that teenagers in America go through, or I guess all teenagers. Puberty, divorced parents or religion, you know shit like that. I guess what I really liked was reading these books helped me feel better about what I was going through as a pre-teen so I really started to like the idea of making work about my experiences and hoping that they will help other people eventually and I liked the idea of doing it in graphic novels format.
MF: Who is your work for? Who is your audience?
AC: It’s a good question. Honestly, I’m still trying to figure that out. At this point I’m just making work that I enjoy making and sing a respond to it.
MF: Where do you draw the most inspiration from?
AC: It changes, depending on where I am and what I’m going through but at the moment I guess just being in Europe, traveling everywhere and seeing new things.
MF: Why did you choose Berlin?
AC: Well it just kind of felt like the most pragmatic choice. It’s really easy for Americans to get visas here and it’s also a good city for art, design, and tech. And it’s cheap. I feel like I chose Berlin with my head and if were to have chosen with my heart I probably would have chosen Paris. I’m happy to be here for now.
MF: What has been the weirdest experience you had thus far? (looking at some of her drawings from last year, showing me the one she did about her experience on Tinder)
AC: So I tried it [Tinder] for 5 seconds last year and I really didn’t like it at all. I didn’t get very far with it. The whole experience was just so strange to me and it felt almost like a transaction. It’s strange because you’re trying to find someone to have intimacy with but it feels like you’re going online to buy something and it’s just like what the fuck is this. So I just kind of shift it into a grocery shop: “Hm what am I in the mood to eat tonight? I could go to the white bread isle or to the meat counter or the eternal guy.”
MF: How do you feel being a female artist? Do you think being a woman affect your work in some ways?
AC: It definitely affects my work, especially in the comics field. I don’t think it has to do with me having more emotions so much as my perspectives of experiencing things that most men wouldn’t. For example, there is an idea I had for a comic: sometimes when showering on your periods, the blood kind of gets everywhere and I always feel badass when that happens. “This is metal as fuck!” I just wanted to make a small comics about that experience. About what it’s like to just be standing there with blood raining from all over the place. Female experience I guess.
MF: What do you think about how you work is received?
AC: I often get criticized on how my work is self-involved. I agree and I don’t necessarily see it as criticism. It’s funny I feel like when people see self-involved work they just assume that the artist thinks her life is so important, so special and so unique that she just has to share it with everyone, but in my case that’s honestly the complete opposite of why I started making work about my experiences. I kind of started to do that because I didn’t want people to feel alone and I know that when I’m going through something it helps me to read a book or watch a movie about someone else who went trough the same thing.
I want to commit. I know that my experiences are somehow universal and that I have this ability to articulate them in a certain way so I figured I might as well give something back and help people connect to these experiences through paper. Hopefully they’ll help someone else going through the same thing. I don’t want to say anything definitive, I don’t know this for a fact it’s just a theory, but I wonder if different genders are perceived differently, I wonder if work made by self-involved men is often perceive differently from work made by self-involved women. One thing I’ve noticed is that everyone who’s criticized my work as being too self-involved happened to be a man. I wonder if there is some connection there. I’m not trying to say “men thinks this way” but maybe there is something to that.
I think the default perspectives in a lot of arts, medias, movies and books are like a white cis dude, which is kind of the norm. Anything that deviates from that is seeing as other. So I wonder if that has something to do with it. Maybe if I were a white guy making work, people wouldn’t see it as self-involved they’ll just be thinking that everyone can relate to this. As soon as it’s a women or a person of color I guess maybe it becomes more “this is such a specific perspective why would I care?” Again I don’t want to say anything definitive, I could be wrong, it’s just thoughts.
MF: Any future projects?
AC: I’m working on fiction narrative now which is sort of based on some things that have happens in real life, and I’m starting to experiment more of fiction. That requires doing some research and parts of it are coming from my life but parts of it also required me to step outside of myself.
I’d like to put out a graphic novel, I’ve started doing some experiments there, and we’ll see how that goes.
MF: Anything to add?
AC: Regarding the all self-involved thing. I’m working on fiction now and that requires doing some research. Parts of it are coming from my life but parts of it also requires me to step outside of myself and do research. I don’t think self-involvement is necessarily a bad thing in artwork but it’s also something I don’t want to get too trapped in. I feel like I should be exploring.
Part of why I came to Europe was just to be less navel-gazing, have new experiences and learn about things I might not have grown up with or that I was taking for granted back home. I definitely want to put all of that into my work. Recently, I’ve been trying to learn German and getting a lot more knowledge about it. A large part of the reason why, is because I was talking to Lana [her roommate], she speaks fluent English and German and she writes, and reads in both. I was asking her “Do you have a preference for reading and writing in English or in German?”. She said “German because there’s ways to express yourself in German that you just can’t in English. It has really beautiful words and phrases that English doesn’t have.” That got me really curious and I started to read and learn more. I really liked what I found and I’m hoping that learning the language will open up the world for me in a different way. I am wondering how something like that could translate into my work. I’m curious to see where it goes. And I know it’s a really romanticize way of looking at and learning a new language. I’m not really learning it for survival purposes or assimilation goals. I don’t know if I’m gonna stay in Berlin for ever (I probably won't). My point is: I wonder if the way I’m learning German is overly romanticized.
Agnes Maagaard
Mila Figuet: Who are you?
Agnes Maagaard: My name is Agnes, I am 22 years old. I grew up in Copenhagen, Denmark, but I am currently living in Berlin. I like telling stories through photography, writing and filmmaking.
MF: You chose to become a filmmaker. Why is that? Tell me about your alchemy with moving image and photography.
AM: I’ve photographed since I got my second phone when I was 12 and it had 3.2 megapixel. It was crazy, so sharp. Then, my parents got a reflex Canon camera and I kind of just took over it from the beginning. Doing small shoots in my room with random stuff or my friends. I also always traveled a lot with my family, and then with friends and on my own. I liked to document people and places.
As a young teenager I discovered the Internet and I quickly found people who were interested in the same things as I was. I started sharing my stuff and collaborating with other girls from different parts of Denmark. My first big photo project was the two-year long KALEJDOSKOPISKE that I did with six other girls. The concept was that we every week had a new theme and then we each had to post a picture within the theme on our individual weekday. It was the first creative community I was a part of. It was a huge inspiration for me to see how as a 15 year old you can create your own concept, where 1000 people follow you, support you, and give you feedback.
In 2016 I attended and worked as the assistant in the photo/art class at the art school Krabbesholm. It’s a preparatory school, where you live and work with 115 other young people for half a year or a full year. The teachers there are also artists. It’s a whole community in the countryside with an amazing energy from all the creative people living and working together day and night.
Besides exhibiting my photographs and starting to print my work, I got really into film there. I made my first documentary, which I exhibited as a double-screen installation in the gallery Four Boxes.
Now I’m showing the documentary at screenings in Berlin and working on a film about my mom and her relationship to her body. I really like the moving images and all its opportunities!
MF: Name 5 filmmakers that have always inspired you.
AM:
Crystal Moselle, because she made the incredible documentary The Wolfpack.
Lea Glob and Mette Carla Albrechtsen for their documentary Venus – let’s talk about sex.
Richard Linklater for his long term projects like Before Sunrise and Boyhood.
Producer Sigrid Dyekjær, because she is so talented and also I met her at a workshop earlier this year and she is a perfect example of girl power.
I also wanna mention Julie Andem for writing and direction the genius series SKAM!
MF: How do you feel about the endless flow of images, collages and photographs that exist on the Internet? Do you believe that it could change the usual photographer status?
AM: Well it must change the usual status of the photographer somehow. But most of the pictures on social media for example are just about documenting one and one’s friends eating brunch or being drunk. Just because you post 10 pictures a day on Instagram doesn’t make you a photographer. And then there are people who would normally not get into photography but because it’s so easy nowadays, they start exploring it with their iPhone and they end up finding interesting motives. I think that’s great! I don’t like the idea of a closed art world only for the elite.
I think that people who are artists today are the one choosing to be it. The ones choosing to take themselves and their work seriously, and the ones who fight to get their work out to people. That can be frustrating sometimes. It took me years to take myself seriously and it wasn’t until last year that I finally made a website for my work.
But in the end I try not to think about it too much. It’s not going to change what I do. I won’t stop photographing just because a lot of people do it.
MF: How do you feel being a female artist in the 21st century? What do you think about feminism in general?
AM: I try to not get too angry or stressed, because it’s obvious that it’s harder to be a women in this scene, like it is in most places. All my female artist friends have experienced being judged by their gender at a job interview or networking. Often the men aren’t even ashamed nor trying to hide it, they just say it: women are weaker and more likely to break down and stuff like that.
I rather want to answer that I feel good being a woman artist right now. And it’s true. I feel like the female artists I meet are very aware of the fact that we should help each other out in this scene with a lot of men. Thus, we are good at collaborating and encouraging each other.
I’ve noticed that my male artist friends are way better at taking money for their work than me and my female artist friends are. That is something I’m working on and also talking to my female friends about. We should be better at knowing our worth. But again, we are aware and that makes us stronger.
I also see that my work appeals more to women than men, and I think that’s a shame, because I’m not making “girly art”; I’m just telling stories. There is still this thing that I already noticed when I was a kid; girls can relate to a main character in books no matter if it’s a girl or a boy, but boys think that books with a female main character are a “chick flick”. That has too change.
MF: What about Berlin – is it the perfect city to live?
AM: I moved to Berlin in 2015 to get new input and inspiration. I lived here for eight perfectly chaotic months. I lived in eight different places, met a lot of people, photographed and wrote all the time and felt very alive. I returned to Denmark in 2016 for a year to attend and work as an art class assistant at the art school Krabbesholm, but now I’m back in Berlin since New Years and planning on staying here for… who knows how long. I love this city! I like that I feel home but at the same time I don’t get too comfortable, meaning that it never gets boring, because I will always feel a bit strange being in such a big city with people from all over the world. But Berlin has these contrasts; it’s big and also sometimes feels too big. It’s hard to find your place, because you feel like you’re a part of a huge group of people and artists, but at the same time there is a lot of small communities. You quickly find your “local” places, where you know the shopkeepers or bartenders and they know you.
It works well for me right now to be a bit lost in a city like this. I know it would be easier to be based in Copenhagen where I know more people that I could collaborate with and I would be more visible. But right now I like to live in a city that challenges me and keeps me curious. That’s not the city I grew up in. I keep finding new interesting spots in Berlin and it’s never boring to just walk around and look at people with my camera in my hand.
Veronika Dorosheva
Mila Figuet: Who are you? What is your fashion background ?
Veronika Dorosheva: My name is Veronika Dorosheva. I am a freelance fashion stylist and writer, currently based In Berlin. I actually don’t have a classic fashion background. I studied Journalism and Literature prior to getting involved in fashion, which is now an important part of my -working- life.
It started with me writing show reviews and conducting interviews with designers and other creatives, which I still do. Then at some point I started to style small shoots for friends and people I knew. The more you do, the more contacts you get and the more people get in touch with you, and hire you for their projects, you know... This is how I ended up doing what I am doing now: all sorts of shoots, editorial work as well as commercials.
MF: Do you believe that styling is an art like any other type of art?
VD: Yes absolutely! As for any other artists it takes time for stylists to find their own signature and to understand what they want, and what they can do. Some people are more creative than others. Some people look at their work simply as work and don’t have an ambition to create something unique. They see their job just as a way to sustain themselves. Others, on the contrary, have this urge to create and to explore. I think you see the same tendencies in pretty much every artistic field.
MF: There are many gender stereotypes associated with the fashion industry (the perfect skinny blond girl f.e.). How do you feel about that?
VD: I think it’s not so much the case anymore. I think we are experiencing a big shift, which is happening now in fashion and in contemporary society in general. People started to be more aware about gender stereotypes, and even if those still exist there is certainly more space for discussion in the public discourse about gender and sexuality. Just look how popular are the feminist ideas at the moment. Fashion like art, both reflect on political events and shifts in public consciousness. Artists are naturally picking up the new ideas way faster and they comment on those ideas through their art. Fashion is a bit slower in these terms, but it’s also changing! Alone the fact that many luxury brands started to use models of both genders for both their menswear and womenswear shows is the marker of the shift in the gender discourse.
MF: Is it more challenging to style boys rather than girls?
VD: Both can be challenging depending on a project, but I prefer to style boys to be honest. Maybe it is because by doing so I am each time learning something new about the male body. When I style girls, I can always try the clothes myself. This doesn’t work with boys. Maybe this is why it’s kind of exciting for me as I never know for sure if the clothes will look exactly the same way as I think they will...
MF: Designer Shura Fillipova believes that fashion is becoming genderless. How do you see the future of fashion?
VD: I wasn’t sure if I knew the designer and had to google her name. But then I realized that I’ve seen her designs in some editorials w little while ago and that I am actually following her brand on Instagram. I wouldn’t say that fashion is becoming genderless. I would say that fashion designers are more and more eager to explore the gender stereotypes and play with them and that there is certainly more fluidity regarding who should wear what…
To be honest, I don’t understand why some people want everything to be genderless. If everything becomes genderless where is the proclaimed diversity that people are so eager to celebrate? Isn’t it amazing that bodies are different? As for me, I love how menswear pieces can look amazing on women and how sexy and powerful a woman can look in a menswear jacket. I also wear some menswear pieces, exactly because I appreciate very much that the shapes and fit are slightly different.
I think rather than pushing this agenda of genderless clothing people should encourage and celebrate the freedom of choice. When everyone will feel free and comfortable to wear what she or he wants (be it a skirt or a dress for a man and a tuxedo for a women) then fashion will be finally liberated from the stereotypes.
Stills from my fashion short film "I Am Not Your Blue Velvet" featured online in Fucking Young - Photography by Reda Ait
MF: How did being a woman impact your life and your art?
VD: I grew up in a very traditional culture regarding the gender stereotypes, nevertheless I was raised by very strong women. What I have always admired in women in my family is the emotional strength and the ability to deal with their personal emotions, but also understand other people’s emotional states. This is how I think that womanhood impacts my life. I am trying to understand people and be aware of their feelings and motivations. The only thing I wish would have been different at the time is that of sexual education and the feminine sexuality. I wish the girls would have been as much encouraged to explore their sexuality as the boys were. I hope this has been changed by now.
I think there are so many other things that impact my life and what I am doing beyond the fact that I am a woman. Where I come from, where I live now, who are my friends and people I encounter in my daily life, my curiosity etc. All this made me who I am now and thus influence what I am doing as a creative person.
MF: Why did you choose Berlin as your base?
VD: I didn’t choose Berlin, Berlin chose me, haha… Well, it wasn’t a thought-out and conscious choice, but rather a series of circumstances that brought me here. I am very happy that it happened though. I learned a lot and consider Berlin as my home at the moment, even though after spending 11 years here I feel like I start to be open for a change.
I think Berlin is a great city for artists and musicians, but there is not so much happening in terms of fashion, certainly not enough on the professional level.
Sibel Ondek
Mila Figuet: How did you first get into art?
Sibel Ondek: When I was 5, I instructed a full art day in my room with my younger sister where we both stayed during Ramadhan. We painted and drew as many as we can till it was time to eat.
MF: What is the purpose of your work?
SO: First of all, I make the art I make as a way to cope with the negative things in my life. I write poetry about sad or disappointing things that happen to us, girls in our 20s. I like reading them aloud to my friends and as I read them over and over the words kind of lose their meaning to me and hence I don't feel so bad about it anymore.
MF: Do you have any upcoming projects?
SO: Dating the wrong people and getting heartbroken [laughs] No, really, I have a bad habit of making people into projects. I am working on a second collection of poetry now that I am in a different part of my life -less heartbroken-
MF: Who is the first artist you truly fell in love with?
SO: Many female artists inspired me. Virginia Woolf gave me an urge to get a voice of my own, Sylvia Path inspired most of my sadness, and Patti Smith made me hopeful for love.
MF: How has the female role played into your life and your art?
SO: I guess I speak about my experiences as a female and I get a lot of girls who relate to my work. I hope to inspire them not to make the same mistakes as I did. I think the Internet and social media was a factor as well. I find more empowering women who are killing it and supporting other women, and that makes me feel united and it inspires me to make art about my experiences that another girl could relate to.
MF: If you could pick a surrogate mother/grandmother/godmother as a mentor, who would it be?
SO: Tracy Emin because she is in unafraid to show her vulnerabilities, and one of her greatest work was after a messy breakup. Her work proves that women are beautiful and fragile and there is nothing wrong with hiding those parts.
MF: Why did you choose to move to Berlin?
SO: My relationship ended and I had to move from the city I was in as it was incredibly toxic for me. I wanted a fresh start where I could make art, explore and meet interesting people.
Bonus: http://sibelondek.com/Wish-I-Said
SO: This project was the last collaboration I did with my ex, and It features some poetry about a girl trying to fit into a city and feeling lost and unable to sleep most nights. They are embroidered on satin panties and cloth.
Katharina Anastasia Hingst
Mila Figuet: Tell me about yourself. How did you get into film?
Katharina Anastasia Hingst: My name is Katharina and I’m 29. I think I fell into film. I’m not one of those people who wanted to be a director when they were 9. I kind of always knew what I didn’t want to do. I started studying marketing in Berlin and I didn’t like the advertising agencies that I saw, because of the way they were. However, I really thought it was interesting how they manipulate you when you watch commercials and I got really interested in how they actually made an advertising film.
That’s how I got interested in filmmaking. I got an internship right after finishing college with a production company here in Berlin, that did commercials. I wanted to see how they made it and then I thought I was going to move on and do something completely different but I ended up just really liking it. But I also knew I didn’t want to be in the production office, I wanted to be on the floor, making the film.
Then I transferred to be an AD on the Grand Budapest Hotel, which was a quite intense job and probably on of the hardest job to start of with. I completely fell into the cold water. Then I met my boss, who asked me to come and do some work in England so I just got more experienced on set, working on films.
Now that I’ve worked in the industry for about 7 years I’ve hit the point where I have to do my own projects cause I fell like I have a lot I want to say. That’s why I kind of quit my career, and started working in film in London, making some money while I wrote my first short film.
MF: How did this idea came about?
KAH: The idea came about because I was about to loose my mind, thinking about the fact that I could not finish anything. When I’m really into something, anything that I really commit myself to usually lasts about three weeks. And then there is always this one moment where I question everything, and just give everything up. It’s a really occurring pattern that I have and it’s so frustrating cause if you talk about projects you want to do and you keep not finishing them you just start to almost stop believing yourself. You become this person that you hate. So I just sat down and I knew I was going to try and write something personal to start telling a story.
Now I have one girl, one location, no dialogues, something really visual.That combines with the little crisis I had trying to think of me as a drive and the reason why can’t I ever do anything that I want to do? I just came to realize it’s kind of phases. I am really hard on myself and it’s been such a handicap in relationships, and in my job; because if you have to deal with people, and you get incredibly irrational and you can’t control yourself then it messes with your life. But no one really accepts it and there is no dialogue about it and also not any acceptance. It’s always just a “oh she’s fucking moody”. It’s not anything anyone wants to talk about. I just wanted to make people aware of the fact that periods are something women go through every month and we still manage to do all these incredible amazing things.
We are still really underrepresented in the industry and we still don’t get paid the same. At the same time it’s not only that we have to struggle with but on top of being a complete hormone mess once a month you still have to control yourself not to give up. And that was just the main thing for me, not to give up this time.
MF: It’s your first film. What are your expectations? Are you afraid of the audience’s reaction?
KAH: I think I’m not so much afraid of the audience as in random people that might watch it. My goal is to create awareness that there is something beyond what we know about what comes with periods and that people don’t speak about it.
I was just talking to a friend about PMS and she just then realized that she had PMS for her entire life. She just didn’t ever think about it as something related to her periods. She literally put one and one together because we were talking about making this film. I’m hopping that this might be the fact for lots of people that goes watch the film thinking that there is a pattern that makes them go crazy every month.
As I’ve raised a lot of money I do have this pressure now that I really want to make it not for myself only but also for all the participants. I don’t want to disappoint them but at the same time I’m aware that this is my first film. This is my main goal: I just want to make it as real as it can get, stick to this actual story that I want to tell.
MF: Adwoa Aboah launched a platform called Gurls Talk, and women are showing their armpits hair on the Internet. You are making a film about periods. Do you believe there is a new concept of womanhood rising up?
KAH: Yes of course. I think it’s time to speak up. It’s a feminist movement that is very different from my feminism. I’m not that radical.
I think it’s great that people are starting to look at all these topics from a really artistic point of view but at the same time I don’t want to see this as a trend. I hope it’s not just a trend that is cool for now. Even Dior makes shirts saying “future feminism”! You can see that the fashion industry has picked it up. I want to make something more meaningful, that may last. Because to me it is way more than just a picture that I post on a platform to get likes or shares, this is not why I’m doing it or why I want to make films in the first place. I love that there is so many women involved now that we can connect so easily. I found a lot of my crew through Instagram because I liked their work. We got in touch and it’s just an incredible time to take advantage of it.
It’s also inspiring cause you can see what others are doing, the fact that you can just take it to the next step or interpret it your own way to maybe look at it from a different angle and inspire others. That’s what makes it a collaboration. This is why I think we all grew so much more as women.
MF: I met you through Instagram. What do you think about the apparition of this social network? Do you think this platform can redefine visual arts?
KAH: Yes, kind of. Along the lines of what I’ve said before, I think it really depends on how you use it. I think that society will have to adapt to and work with it because it has changed so much how we live our lives. Social media has become such a massive part of us. Especially for the teen generation. One has to be very aware of the fake of it all. It is an opportunity but it’s also a pretty big head-fuck.
Now you have on your feed a massive amount of contents, everyone obviously always looking perfectly dressed and shaped and you have access to not only your own people but celebrities who obviously have all the money to do whatever they want to do. And you think that this is the reality that you should be living in but it’s not. So in terms of finding people that have really cool projects and making art I think it’s important, and nice. I kind of use it now as Pinterest. You just look through stuff and you can find really cool artists. If you’re old and mature enough to look at it for what it is and you actually get that it’s not all real, then that’s great. But I think kids need to be prepared for it, there should be some sort of intervention from a very early age on saying, “This is social media, this is what it does and this is the bullshit of it” just to actually create awareness.
Everything is now ran through Instagram, even if you’re trying to find an actress or a model for something, all the agencies say that as a model you have to have so many followers and if you don’t then you’re nothing. I am really against all of that. As long as you keep it straight ahead and you don’t get drawn into this stupid virtual reality that we’ve created then it’s fine.
MF: When did you get your first periods? How was this first woman experience?
KAH: I was very early with everything. I was a swimmer back in the days so I had to go train every week and I just know that lots of girl had started to get their periods because they were older. So they would have these days where they would come to practice but they would constantly complain about stuff that I never really got. My best friend and I used to read this teen magazine in which there was a section where Doctor Zorma spoke about all these kinds of questions teenagers have and told them how to deal with life. I learned everything about periods and I just wanted to have it to get over it and be one of the bigger girls.
So my periods just came one day and I didn’t really know what to do because my mum was going through menopause when I was going through puberty so we didn’t have those essentials linings around anymore. And I never spoke to her about it, it was embarrassing and I just didn’t want to. So I went to get pads and I used them and I hated them but I just didn’t know how to use a tampon, I was so embarrassed to ask anyone. So I gave it a try and it hurt so much, it was so uncomfortable. I kept taking it out every time I had to pee cause I didn’t understand their were just different holes.
One day I had swim practice and I had my period, and I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to pretend like I knew how to use tampons but then I had to keep going to the bathroom. One of the girls, who was a bit older, was in the bathroom and I just came out and she was like “What’s wrong with you?”. I just told her and ask her how you do it. She explained too me that you could just leave it in. You take it out when it’s full. You’ll know.
That’s when I first learn how to use a tampon.
MF: I am supposed to do an article about girls living in Berlin. You’re not but what kind of friendship do you maintain with this city?
KAH: It’s my home. I am adopted so for me it’s always really hard to find that one place that is home and I always feel really detached from everything around me. I am always a bit of a rolling stone. That’s why I travel a lot and I meet a lot of people. Berlin is where I feel the most grounded and yet the most distress as well. My friends are here and that’s the main thing so I always come back to Berlin.
I always feel like I will come back and can’t really get away from it. Even though when I was leaving here I wanted to leave all the time. And now that I don’t live here anymore I want to come back all the time. It’s this general on/off relationship that you have. Berlin is real. This is something that I always think of when out in the world. People are not bullshit people. Especially when you talk about stuff like social media, we all do it and we’re all part of it but we have a bit more of reality left and meaning.