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Photo Credit: Frank Schr\u00f6der<\/p>\n
Illustrator Sophia Halamoda has captured the difficulties, quirks, chaos and oh-so-relatable particularities that make Berlin what it is, from hitting the club after Sunday brunch to placing Pfand bottles beside an orange bin. Following up on her first book, How to Become a Real Berliner, Halamoda\u2019s sequel, Like a Berliner, brings even more depth and humour to her take on the city through her self-drawn illustrations and short blurbs about Berlin.<\/p>\n
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Photo Credit: Frank Schr\u00f6der<\/p>\n
How did you come up with the concept for Like a Berliner?<\/p>\n
When I moved to Berlin in 2011, I wasn\u2019t a Berliner myself. I was 24 and I kind of moved to Berlin by accident because my best friend was here. I was a bit lost. After studying, I was like, \u201cWhere am I going to go? Okay, I guess I\u2019ll go to Berlin.\u201d When I landed here, I felt so out of place and really uncool. I moved to Prenzlauer Berg, and I\u2019m from South Germany. Back then, it was kind of a thing that the Schwaben people were all in Prenzlauer Berg, and they were gentrifying the area. I was like, \u201cOh, my god. Why am I here? What am I doing here?\u201d I felt so awkward. That\u2019s why I didn\u2019t have a smooth landing here. For me, whenever I have some kind of struggle in life, I make fun of it \u2013 like a humorous project. And that was kind of how the book was born. At the time, I also went to a lot of advertising parties (because my friends were working in advertisement), and it was always a thing, like, \u201cOh, are you a Berliner?\u201d What do you have to do to be a Berliner? It was almost like a personality trait to be one. At the time, I thought, \u201cOkay, this is a bit ridiculous,\u201d so I made a book out of it to make fun of it a bit. But also to actually make a guide for myself and for my friends.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Sophia Halamoda<\/p>\n
Like a Berliner is following up on your first book, How to Become a Real Berliner. How did your concept and work evolve for this release?<\/p>\n
What is a real Berliner, you know? Like I said, being a Berliner is also a little bit of a lifestyle, so you can become a Berliner even if you don\u2019t live here. If you spend a crazy weekend here and you have the most incredible weekend of your life \u2013 with revelations and whatever \u2013 by going to Sisyphus for 24 hours, you\u2019d be a Berliner afterwards, you know? So this book is kind of taking the \u2018real\u2019 out of it, because there is no real or fake. There\u2019s just: you can be a Berliner, and it doesn\u2019t matter if you live here or not, if you\u2019re German or not. It doesn\u2019t matter. So that was kind of the thing \u2013 to make it more open for everyone.<\/p>\n
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Sophia Halamoda<\/p>\n
I really love the \u2018Lost Spaces\u2019 section of the book because there\u2019s a bit of a history element to it. How did you decide what to include, and how did you do your research for the different sections?<\/p>\n
I worked together with iHeartBerlin and they provided all of the tips for locations for the \u2018Lost Places\u2019 section, for example. We also developed the 12-chapter concept together, so that was a really big help. And then me personally, I do my research literally by just living here. I get a lot of inspiration from just riding on the U-Bahn, honestly. I like to watch people and listen to their conversations. I sometimes listen to what people talk about in the subway when it comes to places, locations and parties, and I get a lot of information from there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Whenever I have some kind of struggle in life, I make fun of it \u2013 like a humorous project. And that was kind of how the book was born.<\/p>\n
For the \u2018Lost Places\u2019 section, this is something that also fascinates me about Berlin \u2013 this temporary feeling that Berlin provides. There\u2019s always a hidden space and always a space to discover. And you might be too late \u2013 the space might be gone \u2013 and then there\u2019s also this melancholy to it. I think we all come here to look for something. All of us want to find a space, whether it\u2019s a physical space or space within you, and the \u2018Lost Spaces\u2019 kind of symbolised that for me \u2013 this kind of endless search. When I was illustrating some of them, was like, \u201cOh, I\u2019m too late. I didn\u2019t discover it,\u201d and that kind of makes me want to look for more, or to find a new space that might be gone soon. That\u2019s one of the bittersweet things about Berlin. I feel like most spaces here will be gone at some point. It\u2019s really hard to find something that\u2019s actually going to last forever, especially when it comes to cultural spaces and clubs. It\u2019s ongoing, it\u2019s sad and we\u2019re fighting it \u2013 and we should \u2013 but I think it\u2019s also kind of in the DNA of Berlin, being destroyed and rebuilt or broken down.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Sophia Halamoda<\/p>\n
Which section was your favourite to make?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know if I can specifically nail down one chapter, but there are definitely some sections I really enjoyed doing. They might not be the flashiest for the reader, but they\u2019re my favourite pages. There\u2019s one in the \u2018Move Like a Berliner\u2019 chapter where I was drawing the subway, and then in each window there\u2019s like a classic portrait from art history, representing the different stations. So you have Wittenberg Platz and there\u2019s a picture of Klimt, in Rosenthaler Platz you have to \u2018Girl with the Pearl Earring\u2019 and then at Neukolln, you have Bosch. That was so fun to do \u2013 and also to draw Dali\u2019s clocks on the actual time monitor, because I feel like time in the Berlin subway is just fucked.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s one of the bittersweet things about Berlin. I feel like most spaces here will be gone at some point. <\/p>\n
And then there were some pages that were quite catchy for me. There\u2019s a whole new section called \u2018Love like a Berliner\u2019 about dating drama. There are some quotes, like: \u201cWhen you\u2019re lying in your bed on Sunday morning and you have to digest all the failed Tinder dates of the month.\u201d And that was also really catchy and good to do, because I think dating in Berlin is a whole topic. When I talk to my friends and ask what I should write about Berlin, they all complain about the dating.<\/p>\n
Another part I really enjoyed doing is actually at the end. It\u2019s also not really flashy. I was researching a bit about the Urstromtal and the geography of Berlin, and I find it so fascinating that we\u2019re in this primeval stream, and that Berlin is basically built on an old swamp. I find it so fascinating.<\/p>\n
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Photo Credit: Frank Schr\u00f6der<\/p>\n
After the launch of Like a Berliner, what\u2019s next?<\/p>\n
I do want to work on another book about Berlin, hopefully. The next book will be very much about history, but history that is repeating itself, focusing on the fact that Berlin has always thought and protected personal and collective freedom. That\u2019s the Berlin spirit: passing on the torch through the different decades. I want the book to illustrate the Berlin spirit that can\u2019t be tamed or demolished, no matter what.<\/p>\n
I think Berlin will never let me go.<\/p>\n
Maybe it can give them some kind of peace of mind for people to see that some things have always been this way, and that\u2019s actually also a good thing. That\u2019s kind of what I want to do: show the instability of Berlin and how that can be a good thing \u2013 a great thing, even. And to show the trauma of Berlin and how the trauma the city experienced is also the reason why we\u2019re so creative. <\/p>\n
I also want to publish a few products by the end of the summer, like calendars and maybe some stickers \u2013 just a few products that come along with the book. After that, I\u2019m taking a small Berlin break and focusing on topics of mental health, but who knows? Maybe that will link up with Berlin themes. I think Berlin will never let me go.<\/p>\n