SLU students at Hatch – Kat’s post

During the CIIS 2010 trip to Berlin this spring, I asked the students to each write a blog post to add to Stickerkitty.  This one from Kat Dwyer tells about our trip to Hatch Kingdom.

“Traveling to Berlin gave us the opportunity to familiarize ourselves with Hatch Kingdom – the first and only sticker museum in the world.  Over the past couple of years, Cathy befriended Oli and Nada, two artists with a mutual passion for sticker art.  The three of us students—me, Charlie, and Bridget—were honored to meet such creative and generous people.

We ventured to Friedrichshain, a neighborhood in east Berlin, to see Oli and Nada’s unique sticker gallery for ourselves.  Considering there are probably millions of stickers in the world, I was surprised (and impressed) with the layout of their gallery.  It was fresh and unique, loaded with creative, chic, sophisticated, mind-boggling and bold stickers.  However, it wasn’t overwhelming as I assumed it would be.  There was just enough material to look at, but it was very well organized and easy on the eyes.  The stickers reflect culture and creativity, and, surprisingly, political messages are completely absent at Hatch Kingdom.  Considering Germany’s history, political and militant messages are everywhere and are especially displayed in street art, so it was nice to see that Oli and Nada were less concerned with politics than with the simple beauty that sticker art demonstrates.

Oli’s sticker zeal goes back to when he, as he explained, was a “skater kiddie.”  So, from an early age, stickers struck a certain fondness with him.  Twenty-five years later, he expresses his passion in collecting these stickers from all around the world and presenting them in Berlin.

In the fall, Oli and Nada will be joining us on OUR turf at St. Lawrence University to share their creative outlook on something people may feel are very simple … stickers.  But we will learn that, in fact, stickers are much more complex.”

Here is a great pic of Oli during the World Cup.

At the time, he writes:

“Highly respected friends of the round leather ball and a big portion stickers in addition, now they are over, four weeks of wuwuzela symphony with a little bit of football beside!  It was already a very nice time, saw good friends a little bit more again and not so well known people got closer.

Also in my secondary job as a football specialist I could properly shine and have at the two on-line tip communities at which I participated, great, front placements reached!

Enough self-praised and directly to which live makes worth living….

STICKER, STICKER and STICKER!!!!!!”

The SLU students are going to love having Oli and Nada on campus this fall, October 17-23.