Here are some photos from the recent ZK/U Openhaus.
The Die Insel map is now mobile and was exhibited in various spaces in the Stadtgarten and around the ZK/U during the weekend. It has taken on a life of it’s own and can pull a crowd without me. People seem to be drawn to it, keen to read and share the secrets of Moabit.
Downstairs in the main exhibition space was Unsere Insel, a series of maps created by eighteen Moabit residents. Since the April Openhaus, I have been meeting with Moabiters to hear more of the stories that connect the people of Moabit to the places around them. During the conversations, I asked the residents to draw a map of Moabit. This is what Moabit looks like in the minds of it’s inhabitants.
The story of the city is written not by the historians or the travel bureaus. It is written and told as its people interact with its places through the simplicity of everyday life. We construct the sounds and the sights of the city with our busking and street art; We give it personality by exchanging smiles, stealing kisses and slamming car horns; We draw the lines on the map through our paths to work… and so on. Our stories build the city, brick by brick, paragraph by paragraph.
