Reflections of Nomi

During my residency, I had three or four on-going work projects and a couple of personal goals. My on-going projects/work are relevant (social impact game jam, research on Spanish and Japanese games, an interactive experience project about dogs) but not so interesting to talk about for this particular writing so I’ll talk about my personal goals; what I wanted to do was to (re-)connect with the people as much as possible through my mini goals which were 1) commuting to the office on a daily basis, 2) organising my event Gæmz at Ping-Pong, 3) meeting people in person whenever the chance arose. Although 40-days felt rather short, being able to chat with the people at the office and being able to chat with Jacqueline at Ping-Pong made me really appreciate having physical spaces where normal interactions and exchanges of information and thoughts happen. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the importance of having a community as I have been slowly realising how it’s beneficial to have a space where we feel comfortable enough to share thoughts no matter small, big, amorphous, or solid (a friend of mine called it the importance of being able to talk about nothing with the others and I think that’s the most accurate and helpful way to describe it) ; and during my stay here, I’ve been able to actually put this idea into practice in a healthier manner than ever. I think it’s a good habit to share small thoughts and noises especially when we need to share abstract thoughts as artists. I’d like to update my manifesto on why it’s important to have a community–but that’s going to have to wait. As I’m writing this, I still have a couple of weeks left before my actual departure but I already miss this space and Berlin. So, I’ll try my best to focus on making/strengthening my connections with the people and the physical space while it lasts. Thanks for having me!