Nature&Culture: a lookbook

a lookbook

ledito Nature. An ambiguous term based on the context it is used. Green, flora and fauna, wilderness; words commonly synonymized with ‘nature.’

Culture. Another wildly ambiguous term varying in meanings based on context. It usually can be thought of as the defining characteristics of local communities unique to regional areas around the world. Nature, humans and human creations are usually antonyms rarely defined in relation to the other.

However, these objective, static definitions are not conducive to defining layered, evolving concepts.

‘Nature’ and ‘culture’ change based on the context, taking on many different manifestations. Although seemingly separate concepts, one dealing with the primitive natural world, the other with the unique regional characteristics of human society, is a naive misrepresentation of the two’s intimate relationship. Nature can be seen within culture and culture can be found infiltrating natural environments. Varying manifestations of ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ develop new layers to the identities we popularly know. Berlin is an exceptional example of nature and culture coexisting in a major metropolitan city.

Urban green spaces bring nature into culture. Parks bring our classic

characteristics of nature - plant’s, animals, the landscape - into the human sphere. Instead of independent from humans and human creations, humans and nature interact directly in parks. Although human creations, parks allocate space to build nature into urban settings. Parks can be some of the only green spaces some communities are exposed to because of social and economic barriers restricting them from reaching the ‘wilderness.’ Parks allow children from a young age to form an appreciation for the outdoors. Urban planning has the power to change the relationship between nature and humans.

Berlin has countless parks fostering unique human-nature relationships.

They represent culture differently within their natural edifices. Some parks act as hubs of culture. Mauerpark, for example, hosts one of the most culturally Berlin events every Sunday. Vendors and people from around the world interact while walking through the urban green space.

This park allows micro-cultures to thrive in the greater Berlin culture.

Other parks like the Tiergarten represent nature and culture as well, but differently. You can get lost in the Tiergarten’s enchanted expansiveness. Like Mauerpark, Tiergarten represents a fragment of the Berlin

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culture, but in a more refined, elegant manner. The history of Berlin plays a large roll in Berlin’s culture today. Tiergarten showcases historical statues and installations symbolically representing Berlin’s past within its natural space.

Markets act as another direct intersection of nature and culture, beyond the confines of parks. Markets can act as a component comprising a culture, like Mauerpark; it adds to the ambience of the local Berlin culture. Or it can be representative of a culture, as in the case of the Turkish Market at Maybachufer every Tuesday and Thursday. The people, products, food represent the Turkish culture. The market represents a microcosm of the Turkish culture within the greater Berlin culture.

Food represents nature in the case of the market. Nature is exchanged crossing cultural boundaries of buyer and seller. Each vendor has their own relationship with nature and the products they are serving. Some vendors at the Markthalle Neun, for example, market their products as in their most natural form, like the juice bars serving fresh squeezed fruit juices. Other vendors selling crepes, homemade pasta, fresh bakery use their natural products unique to their relationship with food. Ven-

dors at the Turkish Market selling produce showcase a more blatant representation of ‘pure’ nature within their cultural edifice.

Cultural establishments around the city like cafes and restaurants uniquely exhibit nature and culture interacting subconsciously. Nature is used as a form of aestheticization of a space: hanging plants in macrame, potted plant’s sitting on windowsills, succulents as centerpieces of tables. Nature is festishized in a way for profiterial purposes. It has been brought in to add to the culture of an establishment, benefitting a capitalist society in order to make a place desirable thus profitable. This interconnection of nature and culture may often be left unnoticed because of its everyday use.

Beer gardens: a figment of the German culture. Their Bavarian character can be seen draping around their outdoor edifices. Beer gardens, like Restaurant Brachvogel Betrieb’s along the Landwehr Canal, use a natural space, a garden, as a platform for a cultural establishment.

The examples of the different ways nature and culture interact never ends.

‘Nature’ and ‘culture’ take on many different manifestations, especially when observed in urban settings. This is a lookbook of some of the examples I have encountered throughout my time in Berlin. These are all original photos I have taken in my galavant through the city. Whether blatantly nature and culture, or their various expressions, I have chosen examples to showcase from both my personal times and excursions with Nature and Culture in the Transnational Perspective. The images I have captured exhibit the subconscious relationship between nature and culture that have developed micro-cultures ultimately forming the greater Berlin culture.

Viktoria

park

SĂźdstern Market

mauerpark

Prinzessengarten

Turkish Market

Südge

elande

respecthe.g