GREECE: Thessaloniki – Vibrant city built on cities

It doesn´t matter when you go to Thessaloniki, maybe in winter you won´t go swimming, but this city offers just a wonderful combination of the necessary ingredients to have a desired enjoyable quality of life. I could definitely imagine living there for some month or years. The food is fantastic, the people are cool, sympathetic, social and quite open minded. But still stubborn, of course, they are Greek. But stubborn in a nice meaning. They do it their way. And what I observed I really liked, in a lot of aspects a combination of the old with the new, making something different out of it, but without forgetting anything. Everything stays preserved. In Thessaloniki I could meet interesting people who showed me new innovative ideas in which direction Greek culture can go. We went to amazing and entertaining night clubs, one located in an old Hamam, the other homagely named after the German capital Berlin with a taste of its music. And not to mention, the food is just super awesome.

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BRITAIN: Awesome Painter – Philip Cross

Coincidence or destiny? We had a special and creative encounter in the land of the rising sun after a long day of sightseeing in Hiroshima. During our trip to Japan, we came across the painter Philip Cross, who himself was on an inspirational journey through Asia. Deep in painting and flipping through his sketches, he sat at the table, listening to music and seemed inconspicuous at first. But the drawings spoke for themselves and in conversation Philip told of his previous experiences and the art. The deep passion for painting was equally clear, he draws from passion and is almost driven away. In a positive way.

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SPAIN: Charitiydrinks – València

How a good party should be: Good parties have to be badly organized, the guests should have to pay a lot for entrance, the DJs should get put on a podium for glory and there they should play a lot of same-sounding crap music over and over again. A drink should be at minimum 10 Euros and at least have some ingredients from the next street, toilet water and other indefinite moistures in it, and of course before serving it should get put in very high quality bottles with nice labels. But in the end it´s not about the drinks. It´s about the cool and high expensive and hipster outfit. And the fucking shoes….

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GERMANY: Alexander Grauberger – ART Archiv

Being able to exhibit as an artist in a gallery or even in a museum is a long and difficult journey. Due to socio-culturally shaped exclusivities such doors are opened to a few. Through relationships, the academic career, the finances, by luck or really the absolutely outstanding talent and a lot of hard work it already works, but there are not so many galleries and exhibition venues. This is also due to the high maintenance costs, the low subsidies and the conditional demand for art objects in general.

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GERMANY: MusicVideoPainter – TO5Z

His name is actually Tomasz. Take the first two and the last two letters, the „s“ is converted to „5“ and the artist name is finished. TO5Z is a hobbyist, a creative, whose artistic works pervades several genres. Generally he produces music, but then combines the result with visuals. As a painter, he makes a picture, a graphic or a collage for his track. This portrait, in turn, then acts as a catalyst for the final puzzle piece of his project work during the creation: a high-quality music video. The works are thus created in an extensive reciprocal process in the mind of the artist, in his workshop, in the studio and at locations. The results are awesome.

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GERMANY: Culture Map – Daniel Vargas & Sam Khayari

A map is used to get an overview of a region or a country. Thus, then a culture map would be a cultural map. Something that gives you an overview of local art and its history. That’s exactly what the initial idea of DJ Daniel Vargas and visual artist Sam Khayari from Rüsselsheim in Germany was. Meanwhile, a creative website has emerged on which the two Culture Map founders introduce artists from a growing regional and cross-genre network into interview videos and portraits.

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GERMANY: Serkan Goeren – Philosophical Postmodern Goeren Art

Graphics, shapes and colors represent boundaries and the infinite. The works of the postmodern painter Serkan Goeren from Frankfurt deal with the demolition of their own framework. His art could be described as a philosophical art, the paintings and his writings are an expression of a more comprehensive theory, with which the artist has been engaged since the study time.

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ALBANIA: Streetart Durrës

We already showed you a lot of nice graffiti from Albania, the art works were mostly from the capital Tirana, Korça and what you found on the way. A particularly village with very special paintings, however, is the coastal town of Durrës. It’s not just graffiti, but elaborate façade drawings. Here some of the stories are painted on the wall and provided with pictures, each work has a relationship to the homeowners and creators – which are often the same.

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LATVIA: Riga – Cultural Capital, Fantastic Food and Balsam Booze

Have you ever been to the Baltic States? No, not Greece, that’s the Balkans. The Baltic States are located in the northeast of Europe, between the Baltic Sea and Russia, and include the countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. We were in Riga, the capital of Latvia, last week, looking for local street art and graffiti. The city is definitely worth a visit, whether as a stopover during a Baltic trip or as a short weekend trip.

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LUXEMBOURG: Skatepark Hollerich

In the industrial areal near the Service de Sports in the suburb Hollerich there is a cool indoor skatepark. The buildings around are covered with hundreds of fantastic graffitis. Here are some photos. You find the adress below in the INFOTHEK or via the links. On the website there are links and infos about other skateparks in the country, as well about events and contests. The park is daily open between 11 and 22 o´clock. On several days there are courses with different experience level for skateboards, inlines, BMX and scooters.

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