Who is standing next to you?

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by Ricoh Gerbl

In a metropolis, most encounters with people are all-too-fleeting. Neither do we have a clue where people come from, nor why they are in this particular place or what is currently on their minds. As part of her project “Who is standing next to you?”, Gerbl pauses and speaks to people in different big cities. People she doesn’t know. Gerbl converses with these strangers and gradually finds out some intriguing details about them. For a moment, as it seems, ephemerality and anonymity dissolve. Afterwards, she makes sure that her encounters do not simply disappear again or vanish in the flow of time. In fact, she tries to capture these moments in her literary snapshots. If there was a motto for her project it would probably run: encounters expand reality and clarify what is at work. In her text you will eventually hear, for instance, why people take a donkey for a drive, try to earn a living as a street musician or like to eat a pancake at Hansaplatz in Berlin.

Ricoh Gerbl, who grew up in Bavaria, has lived and worked as an artist and writer in Berlin for many years, following extended stays in New York and Barcelona. Her text-picture works and installations have recently been shown at ZAK – Center for Contemporary Art, Zitadelle Spandau, Haus Kunst Mitte in Berlin and Galerie Goldwerk in Rostock, among others. She has been awarded numerous prizes and scholarships, including the Neustart Kultur scholarship and the Alfred Döblin scholarship. Gerbl has shifted her artistic focus from images to language. She has published several literary works and has given and hosted readings in Berlin, Leipzig, Bern and New York. Since December 2020, she is the author of her own blog Bitch-Up.

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