Sorry, I haven’t really been updating my blogs recently. I wonder if anyone still bothers to turn up here.

Well, I have actually been based back Germany since early May. It’s to finish the Bauhaus Kolleg programme in Dessau, while doing research for another project. We did fieldwork in Luxembourg 1-9 June, Sibiu 11-19 June and then I went to the yearly Hungarian political science conference in Péc and further to Essex for a workshop. I was back in Dessau 28 June. It was the heaviest travel I’ve done so far – and those who know me, know that I travel a lot (which is quite apparent from this website displaying my gypsy life, for those who only know me virtually). It was however very interesting and exciting, I think I got a better hang of the both cities Luxembourg and Sibiu – and it was great to see all the friends that I managed in my short visits to Hungary and England!

Since then I’ve been here, and will do so until I leave for Finland 27 July.  The final presentations are 26 July. In Finland I’m then from 1 August until end of February, when I have a chance to go to Hungary March-July. That means another year of the postdoc funded.

While engaging with architecture and urban studies, this year I have been also developing towards the cultural artistic field. I have just created another blog/website for a new project: the EU flag memorial. It’s been good to take up a role different to that of an academic or an activist, leave the previous tags for a while.

Dessau has been an interesting experience. It’s about getting to know the DDR Germany of which in Berlin there is not that much beyond the ‘Ostalgia’ left. Frameworks of organisation, knowledge production and attitudes, which are different from Hungary, my previous home and from the inbetween East and West that one can find in Vienna or Helsinki.

The collective living, working and being has been nice and interesting. By now however I feel I’m ready to move on though from this collective and intercultural context, and I’m trying to get a rental flat of my own in Helsinki. I’ll miss my friends and colleagues, of course, but that’s a continuous story in this gypsy life.

What’s been great about staying in Dessau, too, is that I’ve had the chance to see more of my friends in Berlin, will miss Berlin, probably more than Dessau.

Now, however, I’ll move on again to finish off all the necessary stuff for the presentation, for the conference in September, and for my future life in Helsinki.

Many greetings from Dessau, Germany…