Bärenquell

After having selected and processed my images of Heilstätten Beelitz in a first ‘run’ last week, I have now started with our next destination: the Bärenquell Brewery in Berlin. It concerns a historic complex of monumental buildings from the early 20th century, unused since 1994 and thanks to vandalism, burning and metal looting in a very deplorable state (though ‘cheered up’ big time with graffiti), waiting for demolition.

To us it was a great experience to enter the facility and to capture its final phase of existence. We felt a gloomy atmosphere, the level of senseless destruction was saddening and to witness drop-outs hanging around the buildings being busy with tearing off the last bits of metal was rather discomforting (strangely enough we also saw two young girls there too, who seemed to be beamed down from outer space). And still it was a great adventure that allowed you to be totally there, peaking in terms of intensity and level of alertness – fully focused at what you see and hear, at the photographic possibilities the area have to offer, and at the same time fully conscious of the danger that lures, both possibly coming from fellow human-beings as from holes in the floors, things coming down from the ceiling and everything in between. Driven by an unstoppable urge to discover and hunger for images we felt and moved like commandos storming room in room out, corridor in corridor out, literally chasing images.

Strangely enough I had to think about this when looking back at the occasion earlier this week, when I met again for the first time since 33 years with one of my old loves.  What stroke us both was the immediate familiarity we felt with each other that blew away the distance created by those 33 years. Even more astounding to me was the flow I came into, triggered by seeing all those familiar face expressions and ways of looking and talking, that took me back almost immediately to who I was, to my mental state at the age of 22 when we had our very brief but intense affair and when so much was changing to us. I suddenly felt, fully aware from who I am now, the high level of intensity of being and experiencing at that age, a level that is currently pretty rare in day-to-day life, but very much similar to being in a creative flow, like I experienced at the Bärenquell Brewery.  This told me that you really have the power to travel in (your) (life)time and that your mental state is a matter of choice – a river which flow you can alter as you like and to which, as opposed to anything else (thinking of Heraclitus), you can descend into again, time after time. This also reminds me of how as a child, in my more introspective moments, I imagined that I was merely the thought or remembrance of myself as an old man, my elder self, thinking back of his youth. As if I felt that old soul looking with me and through my child’s eyes – and in this way nurtured and enriched his mind with my imagination. In this way also this experience triggered by my old love enriched me, allowing me to take this along to my now, my home, my love today.

Meetings like these, and similarly these photographic explorations and the camaraderie we had during our trip – they allow us to wander and change the flow of our mental river. They are like rapids, like the transitional and more intense scores in that single, sometimes clearly heard but often hardly noticed symphony of life that make us want to join in and play.

Surely the images taken at the Bärenquell represent some of the dark episodes of this symphony – no illusions about that. These images aren’t pleasing at all. But just like immense beauty also negative intensity, as felt in anxiety, has the power to release the sublime, the ability to release ourselves into (life)time traveling deep into ourselves. Experiencing that make that spring - of love, friendship and joy of life we have in us feeding our lives - well up with even more vigor.