Participants were able to escape from the effects of information overload at the artists’ lectures with a number of other events held in and around the main Cafe Moskau venue.

Doll creators and remixers

Crossing the wide boulevard back over to the Cafe Moskau, in the ‘Salon Kaukasas’, was another program highlight – the ‘RMX Pillow’ project, coordinated by the Australian design collective Rinzen, the famed inventors of the ‘RMX’ concept whereby graphic designers and illustrators exchange and modify eachother’s creations in an on-going process of evolution.

Stitching up a storm

This time though, the designs to be remixed were, appropriately, plush dolls. People sat happily stitching and snipping away, with boxes full of materials to use for their toys, which were then altered and manipulated by other workshop attendees, often to the delight or sometimes horror of the original creator. Rinzen’s RMX project was the perfect communal activity to while away some hours on a cold, overcast Berlin afternoon, and a nice way to meet people through the exchange of safety pins, thread, and fabric offcuts.

Berlin street art

After the fall of the Berlin wall, the blank grey walls of the east became a new urban canvas for street and graffiti artists, acknowledged in the Pictoplasma Conference by way of a Graffiti walk around Berlin. Participants followed Berlin-based graffiti artist ‘Nomad’ around his neighborhood in Prenzlauer Berg and were treated to a dedicated four hour talk about the history of street art in Berlin.