Monthly Archives: June 2018

Education Abroad, Reflection, Student Essays

Reflection: Chatham Field Experience – Berlin, Germany

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By Melanie Landsittel, OIA Student worker

During the first two weeks of May, 2018, I was able to attend Chatham’s short term field experience program in Berlin and Brussels and in the following post I will describe my experience in Berlin.

To me, Berlin is an extremely livable city. Its wide open spaces, rivers, and abundance of public green space are unlike any other place. Getting around is easy with the subway and tram system as well. Another great thing about it is the food—there is a huge variety of what you can eat in Berlin, and most of it is great, like New-York level food.

The above picture is me, being touristy and taking a picture by the Brandenburg gate. The area we stayed in, in general, was a bit touristy, but it really wasn’t too crowded which I was impressed by.

Here you can see what I mean by open spaces. This picture also shows how clean of a city Berlin is, it’s extremely impressive. For those of you who haven’t visited Europe, you may be surprised to know that most public bathrooms here, and in other cities around the continent, charge 50 cents to 1 euro on average to use the public restroom.  This may seem a little bizarre, but… honestly it’s kind of worth it because they are so clean!

On this field experience, we had several opportunities to visit sites related to German history. One of these is pictured above—The Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. It was really a sobering experience, the tour guide described the structure to us as a “geometry of terror.” I didn’t quite get what he meant until I glanced out this window—the whole structure is enclosed in a giant triangular wall, the rows of camps forming semicircles facing the gate. It was quite jarring to look at, and to contemplate what had taken place here. It’s kind of beyond words for me.

We also visited the Stasi Archives. These were where the East German secret police kept their files on citizens. An estimated 51% of the East German population was associated with the Stasi in some way, as official or unofficial spies, according to our tour guide. She recounted to us a story about a woman whose husband had been spying on her for years and she had no idea. Nowadays, citizens of the former East Germany can request that their file be released, but the average processing time is about 2 years. When I think about it, I’m not sure if I would want my file or not—imaging finding out that one of your parents or sibling had been giving the Stasi your private information!

On a lighter note, we also took a short bus ride to the city of Potsdam to visit the castles of old Prussian kings, as well as the offices of the Potsdam conference. The castle pictured above, Sans Souci (Without Worry) was the home of Fredrick the Great King of Prussia… and his 11 greyhounds. He loved these dogs so much, he had them buried next to him on the grounds of the castle.  Potsdam is quite the gem of a city—I highly recommend taking the time to visit!

In our free time, we were able to roam around the city, using our transit pass for the subway and the tram. Berlin is very large with so much to do, so we didn’t have any trouble keeping ourselves busy. One treasure that we stumbled upon was the Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm Zentrum, the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin Library. Pictured above is a view of the library’s astounding architecture—this style is characteristic of the Bauhaus movement in Germany, which is also very popular in the United States! Many famous Bauhaus artists moved to the USA to escape WWII.

On our last night in Berlin, a group of us managed to buy tickets to the Berlin Philharmonic. This was an amazing experience, especially as a fan of classical music, it’s probably the most famous orchestra hall in the world. We saw a group from Berlin University of the Arts’ rendition of Mahler 9—it was absolutely incredible.

As far as Berlin goes, there’s plenty to do to experience the culture, enjoy yourself, and learn about German history.

Tschüss! (It means bye, people didn’t really say Auf Wiedersehen)

Melanie Landsittel is a senior at Chatham, majoring in Visual Arts: with a double concentration in Studio Art and Art History. Melanie works in the Office of International Affairs.

Interested in study abroad? Contact internationalaffairs@chatham.edu to find out about options available!

Student Essays, Student experience

Three Rivers Arts Festival

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by Kylie Fletcher, OIA Student Worker

This summer I went to the Three Rivers Arts Festival in Downtown Pittsburgh. The festival took place June 1-10, which is the same time as Pride events. This year I did what I did last year, my first year living in Pittsburgh during the summer, and I went to both events. Pittsburgh Pride is an event that encourages LGBTQ+ individuals and people who support them to show their pride for the LGBTQ+ community. There’s always a march at the end of the week, with dancers, drummers, and regular people joining in.

Both the Arts Festival and Pittsburgh Pride are always crowded, especially during Sunday, the last day for both events. For the Three River Arts Festival, I go there once the crowds for the Pride events are too overwhelming for me. The two festivals are a street away from each other so going to both is no issue. I think the best part about the arts festival is the atmosphere. The Pride atmosphere is overwhelming after a few hours; it’s very loud and colorful. The arts festival is calm and relaxing. The Point is at the end of the Three Rivers Arts Festival as well, which isn’t often filled with people. Going to the Point after the long day of celebrating to take a rest is really pleasant. There’s enough people there to make the space feel inviting but not so much that it’s loud.

Art at the Three River Arts Festival is very mixed. There are a lot of different kinds of art made from different mediums. I think the most kind of art I saw were different household items and instruments made from wood around the entrance. Wooden cooking utensils and ceramic bowls and plates were rather abundant considering they made up about half of all the art. Vendors selling their paintings were mostly around all the food and the performers’ stage. I think the most interesting pieces I saw were paper cutting and record cutting.

At one small booth a man was selling different paper cuttings. He had some premade that he brought but if you wanted, he could commission a paper cutting. I heard from a friend when she went to the festival the day before me that he saw this woman who said it was her birthday and made her something for free. She had given birth recently and really quickly he made a paper cut out of a pregnant woman. When you moved the arms, a baby would come out of the figure. My friend said she didn’t notice any sort of glue or anything, so he made the entire piece with cutting and folding paper.

Another booth near the end of the festival had old records that had different figures or words cut out of them. The artist had heated a knife and used a hot knife to score where he wanted to cut into the record. While the material was still pliable, he used an x-acto knife to cut out pieces from the record. The process was probably rather tedious, since the material of the record probably cools pretty quickly. Most of what the artist was selling was preexisting popular logos and figures that would sell better than original artwork. There were portraits of famous people, mostly old rock stars, and logos of old rock bands cut from the records. I think his idea would be really cool for original artwork.

The way that a design would have to be made reminds me of art I made in a printmaking course I took. For wood block printing, the design you make has to be simple, since you can’t easily create tones between the color of the paper and the color of the ink. For the record cutting, you can’t create tones between the shapes because you have to create the design from negative space, the space cut from the record.

Umbrella project, Three Rivers Arts Festival 2017

The different public art pieces at the festival are interesting along with the art being sold. Last year there was a display of dozens of different colored umbrellas at the entrance of the festival. This year the umbrellas were taken down and the main walkway had signs the encouraged breastfeeding in public. The signs showed historical paintings with speech bubbles drawn by the people’s faces that said “Wow isn’t this a great place for breastfeeding?”.  I’m not sure if the water’s dyed or it’s painted on the inside, but there’s a really beautiful fountain with the bluest water I’ve ever seen.

Kylie Fletcher is a senior at Chatham, majoring in Media Arts: Graphic Design and Cultural Studies. Kylie works in the Office of International Affairs.