Which motif/scene is typical Berlin for you?
At the height of summer: the parks with their various groups or loners, some barbecuing, others playing ball, performing, or contemplating. Three young people cruise through the city together on a rental e-scooter.

What makes Berlin unique for you?
The utopia that the city exemplifies: peaceful coexistence based on respect and tolerance enables many different international communities to live together in one city, in one neighborhood, which would be unimaginable at a national level or in other regions due to international conflicts. The freedom and tolerance that many people live and feel here, which they manifest in their style of dress. The space that Berlin has to offer. Berlin is generous.

Your favorite place in Berlin is …
On my bike. It’s liberating for me to ride my bike through the wide streets of Berlin. It’s the first thing I do when I return to Berlin, and it makes me happy about everything. By the water—be it the Spree, the canals, or one of the lakes in or outside the city. Water is good for the eyes, soothing, refreshing, and it gives me a feeling of the big, wide world (at least a little). The Haus der Kulturen der Welt. I like the exhibitions and the concerts on the terrace in summer, and the fact that it’s surrounded by greenery.

KRISTIN BETHGE studied communication design with a focus on photography and art at Mainz University of Applied Sciences with a year abroad at the EAV Parque Lage art school in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Since 2016 she has been working on the relationship between society and nature in the context of memory and identity in Brazil, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé. In 2021 Bethge received the VG Bild-Kunst grant for her project Day of Tomorrow—Youth in Guinea-Bissau. In 2022 she received the Initial 2 special grant from the Academy of the Arts in Berlin for her project Aura Djombo, which challenges conventional narratives of resistance movements in Guinea-Bissau, Germany, and Portugal. Bethge works for magazines such as M Le Monde Magazine, ZEITmagazin, Monocle, Wall Street Journal, and The Guardian. She lives and works in Berlin and Rio de Janeiro.