I thoroughly enjoyed my 2025–26 artist residency at the incomparable Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin! I am so grateful for the opportunity to further develop the Manuscriptistan Project, which continues to grow and change and impact how I think about my research and teaching.
I’d been to MPIWG several times before this residency, but never in this specific capacity. I’m so lucky to have been given the time, space, and assistance to reflect on how my expressions in visual art and academic research inform each other and shape my professional activities. I met many fascinating people at the MPI and in Berlin — a wonderful city that I will miss a lot. I walked through many neighborhoods day after day, and I’ll never forget traversing Berlin’s icy and stony sidewalks in January; admiring graffiti in Friedrichshain; and working in cafes in Kreuzberg. But home was Charlottenburg, near the chic run of stores on Ku’Damm and Zoologischer Garten Station, which I passed daily as I commuted to Dahlem and roamed in magnificent Tiergarten.
Before I left, at my talk for the Dept. AAK Colloquium, entitled “An Artistic Impulse … in the Archive,” I got to thank many of the kind people who helped make my residency at the MPI meaningful and productive. I’m happy to take this online opportunity to again say, THANK YOU.