A Faint Heart Beat

I think that cities are characterised by plurality, by the flow and exchange of information, by the encounter of people. All these qualities were missing during the lockdown following the second and third pandemic waves.

Convenience stores were still open, thus providing a faint but necessary heart beat that kept the ill bodies of our cities alive, providing a place where casual encounters could still happen, a brief chat could still take place: a small shelter from the all-pervading pandemic.

My fascination for the small family-run convenience stores (Trinkhalle, Steh-Cafè, Kiosk, Büdchen, however you want to call them) dates back to 2002, when I first moved from Milano to Düsseldorf and discovered a kind of place that is absent in the Italian cityscapes.

My nightly wanderings through the empty town during the lockdown made me rediscover their function in our society.

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