Story/Photo
Love Letter to Senko Issha2024
Damaged camera, expired film, accidental over- and double exposure. Mixing memories from Nuremberg, Tirana, Vienna and Taipei, 2023-2024.
Photos © Claudia Strate
In front of the record store is a bunch of people standing outside, chatting, smoking. We are greeted immediately, we are absorbed into a collective being before we have even entered the space. Inside, the walls and floor are lined with records, boxes, photos, stickers, people. We balance through a narrow corridor between people towards the bar, for a drink and more welcoming words. The first concert starts, violin and distortion, blinking knobs and frizzy hair on a bow. People rearrange, conversations continue and start anew, glasses are being washed and refilled. More music, another exchange. Guzheng and synthesizers slowly intertwine to form a deep hum, making you feel like going either into a state of trance or out to howl at the moon. Snapped out of the sound, we are lost for a second. But then, more smiles and conversations. By now we feel like we’ve always been here, in the midst of this community of people so welcoming and warm and in sync with each other. They speak many languages, they have traveled the world, they organize punk shows, they knit beautiful objects, they play instruments, they read books, they make tea, and art, and conversation.
What are you currently reading? — One of my favorite authors is Ursula Le Guin — Oh, I’m reading this book, a collection of essays — Space Crone? The purple book? — Yes! — I love the image of the fisherwoman dipping into the mind’s lake.
It feels like threads coming together in one place, tying a little knot and reminding you that you belong in this world. Not just one place, but the world as a whole. And reminding you what a privilege it is to be able to travel freely, and to be accepted. For it is made impossible for so many, who cannot enter, who cannot leave, who are not just stripped of free movement, but of their humanity all together.
This place is a refuge.