It’s the beginning of spring, but Berlin hasn’t shed its familiar grey. The step in front of the front door is still difficult in winter. On the way in the hazy fog on Yorckstraße, my gaze falls on the colorful billboards under the S-Bahn bridges. About a dozen posters read, “What to do with the world?”
Feeling attracted, I get off the bike to read the various responses to the question. “Carry the world towards the horizon of care” is written in bright yellow letters – a quote from the Chamorro poet Craig Santos Perez. The Chilean poet Elicura Chihuailaf poses the counter question: “And the world asks itself: what to do with humanity?” On another poster words of the Cameroonian writer Hemley Boum: “The beauty of the world, day after night, will outlive us”.
Vanessa Oberin is an art and media scholar. In Berlin exhibition halls she distracts herself from writing her dissertation.
These and other messages were brought together by the House of World Cultures, which just the week before presented the team and program under the new directorship of Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung. With the reopening in June, there will also be a survey of the world that bears the house in its name. In the understanding of the new management, however, there is not one world. Worlds, in the plural, should be at home in the new HKW – and “worlds” is also understood as a verb.
HKW could not have chosen a better time to launch its city-wide poster campaign designed by Wolfgang Tillmans. Not only does the promised start of spring lure Berliners back outside, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change also published its latest report last week with a clear message: The world is about to irretrievably miss the 1.5 degree target. Longing for warmer days and concern for the warming planet – two feelings that are even more difficult to reconcile this spring.
The IPCC report also made it clear that the most vulnerable regions of the world are those least responsible for climate change, and that a livable world for all will only come with radical change. The HKW alone will hardly be able to overcome this fundamental crisis, but its opening towards the city gives hope: for a world written in small letters that is practice, for and by everyone.
I have been working in the news industry for over 10 years now and I have worked for some of the biggest news websites in the world. My focus has always been on entertainment news, but I also cover a range of other topics. I am currently an author at Global happenings and I love writing about all things pop-culture related.
