Editor Old Friends Drifting Through Germany Anew

This issue was born out of a conversation with Reto Wettach and Michaela Viesser who were returning to Germany after living in Tokyo for several years. Rather than settle back into a country they already knew, they wanted to approach it from a different perspective. “Drifting“ was their idea; to hit the road without an itinerary and discover what was out there, beyond their line of sight. Through a distillation of over 4000 photos we are the beneficiaries of their findings (“Drifting Friends” p.36). What appealed to us was how closely their approach fit with our own philosophy. Quite literally, drifting is “A Different Way To Travel”.

When we joined them in Germany, Senior Editor Kosuke Idee and I talked with Reto and Michaela about how their perceptions of the country had changed. To them Germany had become a web of cultural idiosyncrasies and unique personalities. Their impressions dispelled our notion of “collective identity,” and what they offered us instead was a more complex and satisfying understanding of “place” and the ways that individuals relate to it.

The goal of drifting is neither to arrive at some final conclusion about a place or its people, nor is it to remain as removed as a tourist baking in the sun. It is the pursuit of small understandings that reveal the immense diversity of our world – the search for anything that will tell us more than what we know.

Drift with us through the next 140 pages, through Germany and beyond, take something with you, and remember that the only rule of travel is, “don’t come back the way you went. Come a new way.” (Anne Carson, “Plainwater”)

PAPERSKY #05: GERMANY | new faces

Tags: adventure, culture