BERLIN intim
BERLIN intim
Illustration series about the history of Berlin
(For information about Roman Kroke’s project on this topic, please click the menus right from the white arrow)
The comic-strip series “BERLIN intim“ is devoted to the history of Berlin. Each of the comic-strips highlights a different episode in the diverse history of the German capital. The journey leads through the ancient world, medieval times, the times of the German Emperor, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, divided & unified Germany.
The principle of INTIMACY is one leitmotif in Kroke‘s work. In its conventional meaning the term “intimacy” applies to relationships between people. It describes a feeling of familiarity and comfort. Intimacy thereby usually does not emerge from one day to another but by people sharing stories that create a connection. In his comic-series “BERLIN intim“ Kroke transmits this principle of intimacy from a person-to-person relationship to a person-to-city relationship. If nowadays the relationship between a person and their city is characterized, it is often – particularly in large cities like Berlin – used in the contrary sense: anonymity. The goal of “BERLIN intim“ is to create a more intimate relationship between the reader and Berlin by sharing intimate anecdotes of the city. An integral component of all these strips is therefore that they present some kind of remainder of the historic events left in today’s Berlin, which can serve as a bridge between the present and the past.
The Berlin Wall (1961 – today)
and the universal metaphor of the FRONTIER
A special emphasis lies on the topic of the BERLIN WALL which Roman Kroke explores in the light of the universal metaphor of the FRONTIER. With respect to this topic he gave for instance lectures for the Human Science Department of the University of Bergamo (Italy) and the “School without Walls”, Washington D. C. (USA).
For workshops to be held in Berlin, Kroke offers an emblematic location as a working space: a former industrial complex – now an Art Center – which, during the Cold War, was actually PART of the Berlin Wall; a so-called “frontier house” where still today you can discover many traces of the formerly divided city of Berlin.