It's natural, with my interest in European poetry and avant garde poetry, and my engagement with collaboration for the Enemies project that I would seek out opportunities to work and perform with artists like Alessandra Eramo in spaces like Wortwedding, in cities like Berlin.
Alessandra and I met at the Liverpool Biennale and began a particularly intensive and productive exchange or ideas. When she was offered the opportunity to produce something for Wortwedding, which is solely existent to encourage poetry in collaboration with other media, she offered me the opportunity to work with her to create an installation and a performance. The work takes many forms - a video installation which features 16 videos from both of us detailing our daily rituals at a certain of the morning from February 1st to 16th, a performative exchange of martial arts exercises (almost a dance in fact) and indeed a bout of poetical expression, in which I have written a poem and she a piece of sound art.
Wortwedding, founded and curated by Nicola Caroli, is completely unique. Situated in the working class area of Wedding, very much up and coming in Berlin, it is a shopfront in a residential street whose entire purpose is poetry and poetry exhibition and poetry performance. There are no readings here, just exchanges and workshops that are designed to allow people to experience poetry as a medium that does not exclude them. It amazes me that such a space exists, it is unfathomable in London, and Nicola's vision is inspirational, sharing so many concerns of the Enemies project when it comes to the width of our artform and the possibilities of collaboration. http://wortwedding.blogspot.de
Berlin is covered in snow, it is freezing cold and it feels like a particularly exciting time to be here. In many ways it seems to my very subjective experience to be a twin of London, certainly one in which I feel both excited and at home. I have spent my short time here walking huge tracts of the city, writing and trying to clear myself of the normal intensity of London. To be in an enormous cityscape with so much energy which doesn't force one to work at such a pace is a novelty.