A podcast for all things bookish, especially feminist literatures and literatures of color, Have you read…? is produced by Berlin’s Charlott Schonwetter. We recently sat down to talk about what I do in libraries and anti-racism work as well as other things on my mind. Thank you to Charlott for having me. Have a listen here, if you like!
Warum Bibliotheksmitarbeiter*innnen mit Migrationshintergrund unabdingbar sind: die Folien von meiner Vortrag auf dem Bibliothekskongress 2019 über meine Studie im VÖBB (Verbund Öffentlicher Bibliotheken Berlin) sind nun online.
PDF Download: https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-bib-info/frontdoor/index/index/searchtype/collection/id/16963/docId/16616/start/3/rows/20
Why immigrant & POC library workers are crucial for libraries: slides from my talk at Germany’s annual library conference, about my study in Berlin’s public library network VÖBB, are now online.
Download PDF (in German): https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-bib-info/frontdoor/index/index/searchtype/collection/id/16963/docId/16616/start/3/rows/20
Migration prägt zunehmend unsere Gesellschaft und somit die öffentliche Bibliotheken. Gut, dass auf dem Bibliothekskongress nächste Woche wird die interkulturelle Öffnung thematisiert wird.
Sowohl von mir und meinen Kolleginnen aus anderen Bibliotheken im Programm 360° der Kulturstiftung des Bundes als auch von der dbv Kommission Interkulturelle Bibliotheksarbeit.
Sie sind von uns herzlich eingeladen, an folgende Sitzungen zu Migration und interkulturelle Öffnung teilzunehmen:
Montag, 18. März 2019
Mittwoch, 20. März 2019
Hier alle Details zu den Veranstaltungen: Continue reading
For two weeks in September, I will work as an artist-in-residence in a storefront at Lichtenberg Studios, Berlin. You are welcome to visit this temporary, open studio with a community kitchen for conversations about food and migration.
The old German saying “The farmer won’t eat what he doesn’t know” implies that it’s normal to be wary of anything unfamiliar. Does this still make sense in today’s world? What food do you connect with home? What food is particularly strange or foreign to you? Please bring your thoughts, recipes or ingredients on this topic to the kitchen!
2-14 September 2017
Tues-Fri: 16:00-20:00
Sat-Sun: 14:00-20:00
15 September, 17:00-23:00
For Lichtenberg’s Long Night of Pictures: stone soup!
At 17:00, we begin boiling water and a stone.
At about 20:00, we eat.
Lichtenberg Studios im Stadthaus, Storefront Kitchen
Türrschmidtstr. 24 , 10317 Berlin
S-Bahnhof Nöldnerplatz
Zwei Wochen lang im September arbeite ich als Artist-in-Residence in einem Ladenfront der Lichtenberg Studios in Berlin. Sie sind herzliche eingeladen in dieses offenen Atelier mit Nachbarschaftsküche über Essen und Migration. Mach mit, rede mit, koch mit!
Wie stehen sie zu Essen, das “der Bauer nicht kennt”? Welches Essen verbinden Sie insbesonders mit zuhause? Welches Essen ist für Sie besonders fremd? Bitte kommen Sie mit Ihren Gedanken, Rezepten oder Zutaten dazu in die Küche vorbei.
2.-14. September 2017
Di-Fr: 16-20h
Sa-So: 14-20h
15. September, 17-23h
Zur Lange Nacht der Bilder Lichtenberg: Steinsuppe!
Ab 17h werden Wasser und Stein gekocht, ca. 20h wird gegessen.
Lichtenberg Studios im Stadthaus, Küche im Erdgeschoss
Türrschmidtstr. 24 , 10317 Berlin
S-Bahnhof Nöldnerplatz
Inspired by the North Sea island of Juist, a windswept place where Berlin-based pattern designer Anke Wulffen has been spending summer weeks away from the mainland world of cars and bustle since her childhood, Ahoi: Seaside Sweaters is a new e-book that I describe as knit-erature. Anke blends travel writing, memoir, photography and five new knitting patterns inspired by specific island experiences and imagery.
It was a joy to translate her beautiful descriptions of local color on Juist and how she transformed her many observations of the island — from striped shells and beach chairs, to the wild surf and the wind, and even the crossing on the ferry — into a knit design. Continue reading
If you’ve ever tried to learn a foreign languages, or observed how languages are mixing in Berlin’s neighborhoods (“Jalla! Ich bin Görli!”) you are warmly invited to a language workshop inspired by my recent experiences with Hawaii Pidgin English:
as part of TONGUE – Participative Art Project on Everyday Language
at the Akademie der ZUsammenKUNFT
Friday, 28 October 2016, 16:00-18:00.
TONGUE is a participative art project about new language spaces, initiated by Nadin Reschke and Oda Projesi in 2009 in Berlin. Anyone can be a teacher and teach their everyday language. In this new workshop, I will compare my earlier experiences of language assimilation in “melting pots” like California and Berlin, with my recent experience with Hawaii’s “potluck”-like approach to multiculturalism. There, Hawaii Pidgin English developed as a common language between speakers of English, Hawaiian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, and other languages. Then, Nadin Reschke and I will moderate hands-on experiments and discussions on the evolution of common languages in Berlin, using language contributions from all participants.
Location: die Zusammenkunft, Stresemannstraße 95-97, 10963 Berlin
Please register via email: info@nadinreschke.de
It would be great to see you there — come build a language with us!
The video above, Pidgin Toolkit, was made in Honolulu by Farrington Middle School Students working with the Charlene D. Sato Center at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The Sato Center researches pidgins, creoles and dialects and is a fantastic resource.
A pickled herring rolled around a cucumber pickle, fastened with funny wooden picks. That’s a rollmops! I just pulled one from a jar of brine, cold from the fridge…
While enjoying what I consider to be a quintessential German snack, I wondered if the name (a mashup of the German roll, as in the verb “roll,” and Mops, as in “pug”) has an English translation. Turns out they are loved by some in the English-speaking world, but the English name for rollmops is simply “rollmops.”
Update: this just in!
Days of Deutsch, a fantastic Berlin blog on language and local culture, was inspired by my Word of the Day to whip up this amazing comparison collage. Rollmops vs. Mops. Can you tell them apart?
My briniest, dill-garnished thanks to Polly! Folks, do follow @daysofdeutsch. Your German (or your English) will surely grow in new ways.
Thanks to Flickr user Alpha for making the great photo at the top — a Rollmops in England! — available via a Creative Commons License.
“Local time” is a new series within the blog about my current transition from Berlin to Honolulu. Still fresh from the plane and caught between time zones, cultures and stages of my life, I find myself reflecting on the past eight years of becoming a local in Berlin and, looking ahead, wondering how I’ll relate to American culture and local ways in Hawaii. Because much of my design work is about place and belonging, I’d like to write about the transition here and explore how it informs future projects here on the islands.
A footstep away from leaving Germany for the transit zone of Frankfurt Airport and then Honolulu, I was stopped by the German officer at passport control with a request, the likes of which I had never encountered at immigration in any country before.
“Sagen Sie was auf Deutsch.”
Potato salad is the perfect summer food: it’s cool, it’s fresh, it goes well with sausages and watching soccer. But what goes into the potato salad? That is the question. For me, part of integrating into German culture these past eight years has meant gradually shifting my taste in potato salad from American (favoring ingredients like peas, celery, fresh dill, mustard and mayonnaise) to German. Continue reading
This first week of June, things are feeling summery and full of changes at my studio. For one, I’ve temporarily moved to a studio collective in Mitte for the month, after the Multiverso studio collective closed its doors in May. This Monday, I celebrated my first day (Einstand) in the traditional German manner by bringing my colleagues something sweet — strawberries from one my beloved giant strawberry stands.
