Over the last week, starting on the 28th, I was
in Berlin for the Pictoplasma animation and illustration festival. The event
holds various talks from guest speakers, animation screenings, and exhibitions,
of which I went to throughout the several days of the event.
On the first day of being in Berlin, Pictoplasma had not
begun yet, so we checked into the hostel we would be staying in, dropped off
out luggage, and basically just got to know the area, in and around Alexanderplatz,
near to where the events would be happening.
The official opening was held on the second day of us being
in Berlin, at Silent Green, an old repurposed crematory, featuring an
exhibition with works from a variety of artists who would be speaking at the
conferences, which includes:
- Animalitoland (ARG/ES)
- Birdo (JP)
- Brosmind (ES)
- Stefano Colferai (IT)
- Joan Cornellà (ES) (His work was featured at the
exhibition, but unfortunately he couldn’t be at the event for his
conference due to an illness in his family; Fons Schiedon stepped into the
gap however.)
- Yves Geleyn (FR)
- Loup Blaster (FR)
- Nicolas Ménard (CAN/UK)
- Mr Kat (ES/PER)
- Akinori Oishi (JP)
- Nadine Redlich (GER)
- Andy Ristaino (USA)
- Hikari Shimoda (JP)
- Sticky Monster Lab (KR)
- Tado (UK)
- Wong Ping (HK)
- Yomsnil (KR)
- Lucas
Zanotto (IT/FIN)
There were a lot of amazing illustrations and sculptures
there, with a lot of different styles and techniques from different artists
being shown off. My favourite illustrations from the opening exhibition were
mainly from Brosmind, a duo of two brothers, and Tado, another duo artist
pairing, as I really like the style that they use in their work, often using
super clean lines and very vibrant colours to create illustrations. One of my
favourite illustrations from Brosmind was a meat-man, made from stacking cuts
of meat into the shape of a human. I really liked the way this was done, and
the added lines and shapes around the outside of the character really helped it
seem alive and squishy. I also enjoyed Mr. Kat’s 3D and sculpture work, as he
created stylised skull models, with varying materials, which were super
polished and looked really nice.
On the
second day of the event, the animation screenings and conferences held in the Babylon Theatre began, of
which I tried to attend as many as possible. On this first day, the speakers were
Lucas Zanotto, Brosmind, Nadine Redlich, Stefano Colferai, Wong Ping, and Fons Schiedon. Of them, my favourites
were Brosmind, with Fons Schiedon coming in a close second. This is mainly
because Brosmind was very casual with their presentation; not taking it too
seriously and showing their work and how they make it in a fun way. I liked
Fons’ talk mainly because of the content, with it being about a project called ‘The
Land of the Magic Flute’, which was a cool concept, a kind of interactive
animated comic book, and it had some really nice artwork.
Over the course of the next few days, I attended all
of the conferences and screenings, with my favourite screening possibly being
the ‘midnight’ (that actually happened at 10) mix, which featured a bunch of
cool, weird animations. All in all, the entire event itself was great, but one
of the main reasons for me really enjoying the trip was the things we did
outside of the event, and just around Alexanderplatz. I got to hang around with
a great group of friends, and I feel like I met some great new people as well,
which really added to the experience of the whole trip for me. I’m very glad I
went this year, and I hope to go again next year if the opportunity is there.
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