Ruth Weissmann

1 month ago | the-berliner.com | Ruth Weissmann

On January 25, 29-year-old Berliner Jessica Lia Brösche was doing what many Germans do when winter hits – she was going somewhere warm. The trip involved a month in Mexico, then a few weeks in Los Angeles, where the friend with whom she was travelling lives. But when Brösche tried to cross into the United States at the border in San Diego, she was stopped by US Customs and Border Protection.

2 months ago | the-berliner.com | Ruth Weissmann

It’s April, which means Berlin’s most challenging months are finally behind us: subletting-my-flat-on-Instagram-Story season. “Looking for a subletter for my annual winter migration to sunshine”; “subletting my 1br from mid Jan to March!” If you’re not among those who took your company laptop to Mexico City or Cape Town or Porto or Bali or Mallorca during the city’s greyest months, you’re in the majority – but it’s a silent one.

2 months ago | the-berliner.com | Ruth Weissmann

The world is slowly getting less colourful, with car paint, interior design and – in Berlin – wardrobes all invaded with neutrals. But there’s at least one person here who is still colourmaxxing, and that’s Quebec-born ceramic artist Marilyne Blais. Her handmade cups, oil cruets, candle holders, tumblers, bowls and – new this year – butter dishes are a kaleidoscope of kitchenware, individually thrown and glazed in an array of funky, fun hues.

Feb 13, 2025 | the-berliner.com | Ruth Weissmann

“There was nothing,” Argentinian author and critic Julia Kornberg writes in Berlin Atomized, “more photogenic than a place like Europe as it was here and now, so engulfed in flames.” Her novel, originally published in Spanish, turns up the heat gradually, beginning while the three Goldstein siblings are languishing in relatable teenagedom in a gated neighbourhood of Buenos Aires: Nina is taking aggressively long baths, Jeremías is getting into the music scene, and distant, doomed Mateo is...

Jan 30, 2025 | the-berliner.com | Ruth Weissmann

If you asked Christian Kliem to make you a boomerang, pulling out the Instagram app and recording a looping six-second video would likely be the last thing he thinks to do. “I can build a boomerang very well. But everything that has to do with computers, I’m totally bad at,” he jokes.