Spring Break! Berlin’s Art & Museum Scene

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Ashley Messier

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Ashley Messier

<i>"Hello" in your host country's language:</i> Hej! Hallo! <i>Home Institution (your U.S. University/College):</i> University of Massachusetts, Amherst <i>Expected graduation year:</i> 2024 <i>Destination city & country:</i> Copenhagen, Denmark <i>Program provider:</i> DIS <i>Major/minor:</i> German & Scandinavian Studies / Anthropology <i>Demographics:</i> First-Generation College Student, Transfer Student, LGBTQ+ <i>Future career aspirations:</i> I'm working towards a career in museum/artifact curating focusing on European history. After my undergraduate, I'm hoping to continue my studies further and apply for graduate school abroad. <i>Top 3 goals for your time abroad:</i> My top three goals include furthering my language skills in Danish, visiting as many museums as possible, and gathering up the courage bicycle through Copenhagen.

At DIS, students get the opportunity to travel two out of the three weeks away from elective travels. One week is for your core course, one if a free travel week for you to go wherever you like, and the third is yours or for explorative elective travel. Because I decided to take one of the explorative electives, I was able to get a second planned trip with classmates. Instead of traveling with my core course, I traveled with my classmates in my Curating in Europe course to Berlin, Germany. In Berlin we had academic visits and an assignment just like you would have in a core course. Prior to the trip, we broke off into groups of four by choosing which galleries that interested us. Each group of four visited one gallery where we met with a curator and asked questions about the exhibitions, gallery, and their job. My group visited the KOW gallery, which was unfortunately in between exhibitions so we had to be extra thorough with questions we planned out to ask the curator. At the end of our visits we put together a powerpoint presentation and presented it to the rest of the class on the last day of the trip.

Besides our mini assignment, we had academic visits at various museums throughout the city. I got to visit the Jewish museum, KW Contemporary, and the Neue national gallery. We also had a tour of historical sights such as the Berlin wall with a Irish tour guide and his dog who had been living in Berlin for many years. Another interesting visit was to an Artist studio that is owned by Ben and Sebastion, two artists who create unique and contemporary works of art that you can see a lot of here in Denmark. The week in Berlin was rather warm, and I welcomed it because I was starting to get tired of the cold winter weather. I think my favorite part of the trip was the Cabaret drag show that DIS paid for us to see on the second night staying in Berlin. It was only my second time at a drag show, but I really enjoyed the songs and outfits of the drag queens.

Despite living in Europe the past few months, being in Berlin was a bit challenging for me. The city was more modern looking and the transportation wasn’t as easy and convenient as Copenhagen. At times I grew frustrated with the bus and train system because of how long it took to get from one point to another. The city of Berlin is larger than what I’ve been used to and the buses and trains were older and dirtier than Copenhagen. At a point I started feeling homesick for my familiar lifestyle in Denmark and looked forward to the weekend ahead that I had planned back in my European home. Overall, I would not want to change my experience in Berlin, but I know what I will do the next time I decide to visit the city. Perhaps I will take more taxis!