While people do come together in those spots, they still live in their own little individual worlds. Common grounds do not always guarantee togetherness, yet the individuality and uniqueness of the characters that make up Berlin is part of what makes this place a special one.
Despite all of its problems, just like any other urban jungle, Berlin includes several common grounds that bring people of all walks of life and socio-economic statuses together. As immigrants living in the city, we notice these spaces mostly where food and/or drinks are present.
Therefore, we decided to bring several characters from all preceding frames in this series, together in this image, that is titled “Common Ground”. The abandoned items here are two furniture items (a white shelf wrack, a sofa seat), a pair of green pants and black house slippers.
The items act as dividers between two spots that typically act as common grounds for Berliners, namely: the “Späti”, a small or medium sized grocery outlet that is typical of Berlin and its name is only known in the German capital. The other spot is the “Döner” shop, that serves the Turkish-German chicken and/or meat wrap. Invented by Turkish immigrants to Germany and inspired by the original Turkish kebab, this street food is popular with the majority of those living in and/or visiting Berlin specifically and Germany as a whole. Both spots can get really crowded with queues of people lined up to either grab their snack, drink or both and are usually open into the late night hours and on Sundays. They can be life savers to the hungry and thirsty rave goers, late nighters or Sunday snoozers.
While people do come together in those spots, they still live in their own little individual worlds. Common grounds do not always guarantee togetherness, yet the individuality and uniqueness of the characters that make up Berlin is part of what makes this place a special one.
Image taken in Neukölln, Berlin (2022).
This is the final part of Rasha and Michael’s series of photos and cartoons about contemporary Berlin. You can see the previous parts of the series here:
- 1: Blind Orders
- 2: Cancelled Remains
- 3: Hashtag 161
- 4: Shit
- 5: Soli-Ceasefire
- 6: Tight Angle
- 7: Dear Neighbors
- 8: Tourist Attraction
- 9: Layered Crisis
