The TWO CITIES project was a dialogue from the beginning, about photography and design, but also about people, about cultures, about language, about history, about customs, about food and drink. How is it in Iran? What is it like in Germany? “If you take a trip, you can tell a story,” the German poet Matthias Claudius once claimed. But what if traveling is not possible? How can a university dialogue succeed, how can students almost 4000 kilometers apart get to know each other without being able to meet? The Corona pandemic also gave us this challenge.
The answer to these questions and the solution of this problem was the reason why the TWO CITIES Café was invented by the Research Assistants during the third and last workshop. In mixed order, the café opened its virtual doors in a video conference. In a casual atmosphere of conversation, tea, coffee and snacks, food and customs were introduced arround and the students got to know each other better by understanding the peculiarities of the country. The come-togethers were not always about photography, but rather about personal exchange within young people, where the teachers were not appart.
By Philipp Robien, Research Assistant