Berlin in 40 postcards

What does it mean to draw a city I have not visited? That was the first thought that crossed my mind when Roshini Vadehra, Director of the Vadehra Art Gallery, commissioned me to make a series postcards about Berlin.

It was a cold, rainy, sunless January in Delhi, with curfews in place as per Covid Omicron protocol. I hadn’t been travelling for awhile. It felt like the perfect time to inhabit another city. I decided to travel back to the past, to Berlin when it was just a small settlement thousands of years ago. It felt safe to begin there, it was a space that nobody else presently alive could have visited, and thus, the factuality of what I observed there with my mind’s eye could not be contested. The time machine I chose to travel in, was a book. Faust’s Metropolis by Alexandra Richie.

As I tumbled closer towards Berlin’s more recent history in the last couple of centuries, the city started to feel more like a very resilient person who’s ability to endure and yet stand up tall and sunny regardless left me with a message to keep for live. ‘Be like Berlin’ is what I think I could tell myself as a motivational proverb.

With a sense of the city’s history, and referencing photographs of the architectural city, I was able to create my version of Berlin, what I felt it might feel like to stroll through the city. A city I saw entirely in my mind’s eye.

Berlin in 40 postcards by Shoili Kanungo
Berlin in 40 postcards by Shoili Kanungo
Berlin in 40 postcards by Shoili Kanungo
Berlin in 40 postcards by Shoili Kanungo
Berlin in 40 postcards by Shoili Kanungo

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