Writing Workshop CREATIVE STRATEGIES: Berlin as a Metaphor – Reimagining the City by Çağla Arıbal
General Course Description
Berlin is a city of layers, shaped by overlapping histories, shifting identities, and evolving narratives. It remains a powerful metaphor for the urban—a place where memory, imagination, and lived experience intersect. In this workshop, we will explore Berlin as both a real and imagined space, a city that exists simultaneously in literature, history, and the personal.
Through writing, storytelling, and creative exercises triggered by visual examples, we will investigate how absence, erasure, and transformation shape our understanding of place. How can a city be read like a text? What textures can we add to this text? Can a memory be a footnote, or a building act as punctuation? We will excavate Berlin’s hidden narratives with the depth of an archaeologist, reimagining them through the lens of experimental literature—practicing the art of looking: what is revealed, and what remains unseen?
- Guided Lectures & Reflections – Short inputs on metaphor, memory, and place-based storytelling to spark creative thought
- Creative Writing Sessions – Exercises triggered by visual examples, exploring poetry, fragmented narratives, and imaginative mapping
- Reading the City – Engaging with Berlin’s textures through personal memory, public space, and speculative reconstruction
- Site-Specific Prompts – Using overlooked urban sites like Mouse Bunker & Kaninchenfeld as raw material for metaphor and narrative
- Collaborative Feedback – Supportive group discussion to refine voice, structure, and experimentation
- Final Project (Optional) – Contribute to a digital zine collecting participants’ reimagined visions of Berlin
Duration: July 02 – 03, 2025
Hours: Each day from 10 AM – 12:30 PM
Seats: Max. 20 | Language: English
Fees: The participation fee is €90 per person including material (without accommodation).
The fee is VAT-exempt by the Governing Mayor of Berlin – Senate Chancellery Higher Education and Research pursuant to Paragraph 4 No. (21) (a)(bb) UStG (German Value Added Tax Act).
Learning outcomes
By the end of this workshop, participants will:
- Gain confidence and fluency in literary expression, regardless of prior writing experience
- Develop structured, evocative texts rooted in memory, place, and observation
- Explore experimental and metaphor-driven approaches to storytelling
- Engage with Berlin as an artistic and narrative subject, uncovering its layered meanings
- Have the opportunity to contribute to a digital zine that maps Berlin through personal and imagined perspectives
Program Structure with Daily Lesson Plan
Day 1
Situating the Self & Mapping Inner Landscapes
Brief introductions and a sensory memory exercise to ground participants.
An introduction to writing place through personal memory, with examples from literature.
Write a short piece imagining the city through sound, smell, or emotion (no local knowledge required).
Small group sharing with guiding questions.
Exploring the limits of perception and the metaphor of Berlin.
Reimagining Berlin through abstract or emotional landmarks, using creative forms like typography or cartography.
12.10 – 12.30 PM | Discussion & Reflection
Group debrief on discoveries, challenges, and creative directions.
Day 2
Metaphor & Collaborative Narratives
Understanding metaphor as a tool for spatial transformation.
Creative response to Mouse Bunker or Kaninchenfeld, with no historical knowledge required.
Peer review focused on a paragraph or visual image from each participant.
Integrating themes from both days into a short final piece or zine contribution.
Optional upload to a shared digital space; participants can reflect on the collective narrative.
Final reflections and thoughts on how to carry the work forward.
Your Workshop Instructor
Çağla Arıbal is a Berlin-based writer, poet, and lecturer, originally from Turkey. She holds BA and MA degrees in English Literature from the University of Potsdam. Her work has been published and anthologized internationally, in First Page, Textur, Versopolis, Stadtsprachen, and more. In 2023, she received a fiction prize from the Oxford Review of Books. Arıbal has performed at international literary festivals, including Runokuu in Helsinki and Haus für Poesie in Berlin. She has translated for theater productions, and produced and moderated literary events. Since 2020, she has taught writing and literature at European institutions and universities, both on site and online, fostering a community of emerging writers. Her work, translated into German, Czech, and French, has been supported by residencies and grants in Finland, the Czech Republic, and the United States.
More information on the Çağla Arıba Website.
