Just Like That

Berlin’s been drowning in posters for weeks—movies, events, services, and now election season on top of it. The candidates have claimed every vertical surface, and public space becomes just another billboard. You walk past thousands of messages nobody asked for.

Someone did something simple about it. An artist group called Einfach so flipped about a hundred election posters over. CDU, SPD, the usual suspects—turned them around. Now the city’s got empty rectangles everywhere, surfaces waiting for something.

The move is clever because it’s legal. You’re not destroying the posters or taking them down—you’re just flipping them. It’s a loophole that makes you smile because it works. A little lightness in the day, a little space that doesn’t belong to someone else’s message.

What interests me is that it doesn’t try too hard. It’s not preachy about reclaiming public space or critiquing electoral politics. It’s just: these are white now, do what you want. A small act of refusal that opens the door instead of closing it. Berlin needs more of that kind of thinking—not the righteous intervention, just the useful one.