This year has been quite different, hasn’t it? A lot of crazy things happened, but we can all agree on what was most important: the pandemic. If you had told me a year ago that this would happen, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. But here we are, 9 months after the start of a global outbreak of an airborne viral disease that rocked the world.
Of course, this pandemic has brought us a lot of negative things, but I don’t want to focus on those – you can just turn the news on for that. I want to focus on the things that were good, especially how people reacted positively to the crisis. As many of us struggled with our lives, work and sanity, some people gathered their creative energies to come up with great things to brighten up everyone’s days and show an optimistic spirit.
One of the first responses to the initial lockdown in March came from the nightlife scene. I was very impressed with how quickly the United We Stream project emerged from the Berlin club scene and how it spread to Germany and the rest of the world. It gave revelers something to hold onto while the clubs were closed and made a lot of money for the nightlife creators who were suffering.
The next group of people from the cultural scene who were hit by the lockdown who came out with something amazing were the dancers, led by the Staatsballet Berlin and followed by many other companies and independent dancers. They came out with some wonderful performance videos shot at home or in nature.
We have also received numerous submissions from visual artists who have created photo sets dealing with the lockdown or other aspects of this new reality, one of Lovis Ostenrik’s most beloved who shot people trapped in their homes during the first time they lock their windows. .
Finally, there are your own stories that you’ve shared with us and that we’ve compiled into a mini-series of articles we’ve called Quarantine Diaries. We loved reading how you handled the situation and hope it also helped a few other people not to feel so lonely and isolated.
Below is our collection of articles on these amazing creative responses to the Berlin pandemic that have given us so much hope and inspiration this year.
