When I've heard the term minimal traveling from the residency description, it came to my mind the book by Alain de Bottom "The Art of Travel" - specifically the chapter about traveling in your room. It suggests the reader how it may not be necessary to go far away to explore the world and enjoy the insights sparkled by traveling.

The enriching aspects of traveling - discovery, empathy, enthusiasm - are close at hand if you perform a playful effort of attention, and establish a relationship with the surroundings based on active observation and curiosity. 

Living abroad for 15 years, I must say that this traveller’s curiosity often fades out when the mind gets used to a new surrounding. It’s when the details are taken for granted, and ironically, you feel at home.

Then, action is needed - at least for me, since my artistic drive comes exactly from the moments when the so-called trivial shows itself in its true colours: beautifully rich - in history, aesthetics and metaphor.

Process 

During the two-week residency, I have radically adopted the perspective of a traveller, in the close surrounding neighborhood - a limited space in time. The process was simple: observing, experiencing, and developing the thoughts and sensations through notes and drawings - which were daily reassembled in the studio space.

In the final days of the residency, I was invited to take part in Parallel Protokoll, a long-running project by Stefanie Steven. Each week, Stefanie and a group of volunteers choose a specific spot in Berlin where, for 20 minutes, they observe and describe their surroundings in writing. These impressions are later transcribed and published as parallel texts in a printed publication.

For this edition, I participated as an observer and note-taker—but instead of using words, I drew. I was asked to choose the location, so we walked to a street corner just five minutes away and sat in front of an abandoned shop that had caught my attention since the beginning of the residency. Its faded signage offered no clues about what it used to be, and it had become a home for birds. The large glass windows revealed a well-lit interior, and I found myself daydreaming—half seriously—about having a studio there one day.

Though it was a bright and beautiful morning, I had just received the heartbreaking news that a close cousin of mine in Brazil had passed away the night before. I took a long breath. Drawing has always been a way to calm my mind, so this moment felt almost providential. I didn’t turn it down.

The result of the activity was published some weeks later. The impressions in writing of three observers can be read in parallel in their original languages (German, Spanish and Japanese) and in German,  illustrated by fragments of the drawing of the chosen location. The publication also features a link to the original drawing sketch (also with one or another of my notes in writing).

Conclusion

If observational drawing is for me a constant exercise, this activity has literally provided me new perspectives on the act of looking. Reading the published outcome - a writing account of an expanded moment in time - was a magical opportunity to revive the drawing experience through a collective point of view. 

Thanks to Stefie Steden, KHB Studios and the participants of the Parallel Protokoll.