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The miraculous journey of a mosaic

In 2015, when I exhibited pieces for the Hamam mosaic in Brazil, visitors asked for a similar mosaic for their house in Washington. Years went by… We have since moved to Washington and I now live in here and in Berlin. In September 2023, I met our friends again and asked them if they were still thinking about the mosaic they had asked me for so many years ago. I met them in their house, we looked for a place and found a suitable niche above the bathtub. One of the fish from the Ayvalik mosaic could swim well there! I presented them with 4 designs for the 45×29″ niche and an estimate, they chose one design and accepted the budget.Design_M&C_Oct_23 In November and December 2023, I produced the mosaic on a temporary support in my studio in Berlin. I glued the tesserae upside down onto craft paper. IMG_1213 When I was finished after 40 hours, I was able to cut the mosaic apart and pack it in pieces between polystyrene sheets for transportation to …

Möckernkiez Community Mosaic

The video of the community mosaic “Möckernkiez” is here! A document of the creative work of a house community. ” I would not have thought that my neighbors could produce such beautiful designs. Now I see some of them with a whole new set of eyes.” a resident and participant in the Mosaik project told me during the opening of the first part of the Community Mosaik for House 1 in the Möckernkiez in Berlin Kreuzberg. 32 residents from the 22 apartments that use Staircase A on a daily basis each designed a mosaic tile. On May 5, the mosaic tiles were installed by me and 3 other helpers from the house in the entrance area as a frieze. Saturday, May 6, was scheduled for joint grouting. Unfortunately, no one had signed the list of helpers. We “installers”, still tired from the previous day’s concentration and physical exertion, were worried. Would we manage to grout and clean the mosaic before the inauguration which was scheduled for 3pm? We started to mix the grout. And lo …

Trauer nach dem Erdbeben in der Türkei und Syrien

I am mourning with the people in Turkey and in Syria about the loss of lives and livelihoods in the region of the earthquake. In 2015 I spent a whole month in the city of Gaziantep learning and working together with Nusret Özdemir, a mosaic master and former security guard of the archeological museum Zeugma where the most beautiful mosaics were discovered in the last century. In his workshop we made the figures of the Ayvalik Mosaic – a project I did in 2015-16 to recreate a whole mosaic floor in ancient technique. During that month I was living in a flat share in Gaziantep with Ayse Ebru Corbaci who is the lead conservationist of the Gaziantep district. I have heard that both are well and their houses are still standing. I haven’t heard about the Zeugma Mosaic Museum in Gaziantep and also the situation at the archeological site. We will get to know about the conditions of these truly magnificent cultural heritage places – first is the care for the people that are insured …