July 02 – 03, 2025, 10 am – 12:30 pm
Many thanks to the writer, poet, and lecturer Çağla Arıbal for her workshop introducing our participants to CREATIVE STRATEGIES: Berlin as a Metaphor – Reimagining the City during the basic course within the Studio Program at BAI | Berlin Artist Residency, Art School, Arts Incubator, and Live Online Courses & Classes.
“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?
This workshop offers a lucid exploration of textual strategies, while bringing high spirits and wit to its evolving conclusions. It is open to writers, artists, and thinkers of all levels who are interested in reimagining what writing and the city can be. Whether you arrive with a fully formed idea or just an abstract sense of place, we will unearth narratives together through writing exercises, feedback, and discussion.” (Text by courtesy of Çağla Arıbal)
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.
