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Concrete Dreams: Crossroad Encounters.
How do you enter a world whose language you barely speak? Casting silent side glances, I guess… (tbc) *Merry X/Christmas and happy holidays to you all!*
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Concrete Dreams: Outsiders.
Sometime summer will return, bringing days of unbearable heat to Tokyo again… Time to slow down, then. Finding your own pace in a literally melting concrete ocean might be a mere survival technique. Beyond that, it provides a kind of freedom no exercice of “fitting in” ever could. (tbc) *Warming up for my new yonkoma
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Concrete Dreams: Tokyo Wandering.
To visit one of the busiest cities of the world with no other purpose than just walking around seems incredibly futile, right? Yet I did it, every single one of my own steps on heated summer asphalt encouraging me to go further. (tbc) *Warming up for my new yonkoma series ‘Tokyo Mosaik’, tribute to a
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Concrete Dreams: Morning Rituals.
‘Tastes strange’ was how I would label Japanese tea while I was in Tokyo. Drinking it anyway eventually changed me, though. Since I left, I can’t get enough of sencha anymore. It reminds me of morning rituals, and of the fact that there is a country on the other side of the globe where people
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Concrete Dreams: Tokyo.
Has the thought of living in a giant concrete ocean ever frightened you? It’s a reality, after all. Most of us are dwelling in cities, making our planet an inreasingly urban one. (tbc) *Warming up for my new yonkoma series ‘Tokyo Mosaik’, tribute to a magic city.*
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Inside Berlin: Die Mauer.
More than a look at the few remnants of today’s Berlin Wall, a certain documentary film evokes the spirit of change linked to that symbol of separation. Jürgen Böttcher’s documentary “Die Mauer” has captured the immediate aftermath of the peaceful German revolution in 1989 around the wall. His aesthetic brilliance adds to a discrete narration:
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Storytelling connects: How manga meets football and motivates.
When the place you inhabit becomes too narrow for your dreams, move out!” … said the bird to the wanderer, so wander we did. When a journalist recently asked me to draw a manga sequence for a TV feature about two Japanese players from the Berlin based football club Hertha, it kinda made sense. I’m
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Peace found. Meditation:
Had you asked me this in my younger days, at age 20 maybe, I’d never have deemed this possible. Finding inner peace and sorting out the constant flow of images in my mind through buddhist meditation techniques? Back in the nineties, I used to despise those Hollywood stars turning towards far away rooted religious traditions,
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Beyond imaginary prison bars
So, the tighter you’re gripping the bars, the more they restrain you? Let go, then. Think of what’s beyond, and we’ll see how fast you’ll make it disappear: a prison of thoughts and habits holding you back from the next step towards more awesome things. Big thanks to André for encouraging thoughts on the freedom
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Learning from Vivian Maier #6: Share & grow
A closer look on what held Vivian Maier back to publish her posthumously acclaimed street photography work unveils parallels to a very modern dilemma. To be honest, we’ve all become data junkies, aimlessly stacking digital media just as the nanny used to stack her (mostly undeveloped, unseen) visual material. Nowadays, every new app, every new