Friday 21 April 2017

A bracelet in memory of your origins

From vintage buttons to Zeit Magazine.

It all began in 2011 with the idea of selling jewellery to raise money for the Tsunami relief fund in Japan. Kerstin, a young German architect with a passion for art and design, started creating necklaces using vintage buttons and colourful microbeads. She founded primaofficina together with her friend Jana. The handcrafted jewellery displayed in a boutique in the Mitte neighbourhood of Berlin caught the attention of a journalist, who published a picture of one of these necklaces in Zeit Magazine.

World Cup fever 


The two working mothers had little time to invest in their business; they needed someone to support and promote primaofficina with fresh ideas. Inspired by the football World Cup of 2014, Kerstin's husband Fernando came up with a simple new product that was attractive not only to female customers: a bracelet for football fans. The bracelets were available to buy online and the very first order came from a Greek girl living in New York.  Even after the end of the World Cup, the requests from the competing countries continued, along with enquiries from countries that had not participated in the football tournament. The majority of these were from Central & South America and Eastern Europe. 

A bracelet in memory of your origins


Syria special edition
During the following year Fernando was surprised by the growing demand: there were many requests for bracelets representing African countries. As the demand for more nationalities grew, he decided to include all countries from Africa, Asia, and Oceania. The new collection initially conceived as a symbol for football fans worldwide soon acquired a whole new meaning: cultural identity, roots or nostalgia. Fernando decided to call the collection "In memory of your origins". 



The biggest request is for Syrian and Palestinian bracelets 

Palestine 

What is interesting to note is that although half of the sales are to the US, the requests are not for US bracelets; a clear sign that the US is a country of immigrants. The majority of the demand is for Latin American, African, Middle Eastern and Eastern European countries. Perhaps not surprisingly, these days the biggest request by far is for Syrian bracelets, followed by Palestinian bracelets. In Eastern Europe, most of the sales are to Ukraine and Albania. Fernando, an Italian national living in Berlin, says “This has nothing to do with nationalism, rather with nostalgia for one's roots and the awareness of living a new life experience in another country”.

As this story shows, today the concept of cultural identity is alive more than ever.

The bracelets are available to buy online on DaWanda and Etsy.



Jewellery carefully crafted by hand

Wednesday 19 April 2017

Touring the Haus - temporary urban art gallery in Berlin


On a wet and windy Saturday morning in April we emerge from the Wittenbergplatz U-Bahn station. Clutching our umbrellas we walk along Tauentzienstrasse passing KaDeWe and dodging the crowds of tourists and shoppers. As we turn into Nürnbergerstrasse we spot a long queue of locals and tourists undeterred by the rain. They are patiently waiting in line to enter the building at number 68/69. 

From the outside it is a grey and ugly construction. What is all the fuss about? - one may ask. The only giveaway is the rather large and colourful graffitied H sprayed on the facade. This is no ordinary building. This is The Haus. For eight weeks only an old bank in the heart of the west Berlin shopping district has been converted into an art gallery. Each of the 108 spaces, including the toilets, corridors and staircases, have been turned into unique works of art by 165 local and international urban artists. 

We are called into the building 10 minutes before the start of our pre-booked tour. After paying the ticket and leaving our coats, bags and mobile phones, we are welcomed to The Haus. Our guide, a member of the art collective Drink and Draw, tells us how the project began. The property now belongs to investors who will tear it down and replace it with luxury apartments. But before the building is demolished at the end of May, the developers have agreed to hand over the keys to the street art group The Dixons. It was their idea to turn the building into a temporary art gallery. 

Our tour lasts two and a half hours and takes us through the five floors, where we see works by Case Maclaim, Stohead, El Bocho, Emess, 1UP, Herakut, Klebebande, Insane51, Rotkaeppchen & Goliath, Nick Platt and Paul Punk, just to name a few. Our guide tells us anecdotes about the building, the rooms, the artists and their work. He also points out different styles and techniques. Every room is unique. Some rooms are extremely colourful, others are dark or have black and white patterns. One room has been turned into a forest, while another was entirely decorated using a black marker pen. Some artwork was created with tape, while other rooms feature lots of paint. By the end of the tour we feel like we have been through a magical journey.

If you want to avoid the queues I strongly suggest booking a tour onlineThe cost is €10 per person (€4 for children) and will make the visit all the more interesting. Please note that photography is not allowed so put your phones and cameras away and enjoy the experience with all your senses. "The Haus was created to be destroyed" so make sure you get there in time.