Having lived in Berlin for a month now, I can safely say that there’s no shortage of interesting things to do here. I could easily spend a year just exploring all the nooks and crannies of the city. However, one of my favorite experiences that I’ve had here so far was getting to see some exhibitions at Berlin Art Week. We study in the district of Mitte, which happens to be home to a large number of art galleries. On the first day of Art Week, we walked a few blocks to the KW Institute for the opening of an exhibition called The Jungle. 
It was a slightly surreal experience; upon our arrival, we were directed into a basement room, where several men in swimsuits posed with painted cardboard cutouts of themselves while tropical sounds played in the background. The rest of the exhibit predominately featured videos, including one of people in a lush jungle setting painting the leaves of a plant green. Another room had a setup of three TV screens, each playing different (and bizarre) videos inspired by anime, TV news, and internet culture. The most memorable of these videos for me featured a woman petting what appeared to be a crayfish, then putting it down on the floor and stomping on it. As we left, I noticed a neon sign above the entrance to the gallery which read “Dein Land Existiert Nicht,” or “Your Country Does Not Exist.” While I can only guess the artist’s intentions with the piece, I believe it could be a commentary on the recent influx of refugees into Germany and other European countries. Either way, it’s a phrase that stuck with me.
