Bowie, Vampires & Artistic Freedom in Berlin
This January, for my birthday, my husband gave me a trilogy of The Vampire Chronicles novels by Anne Rice. I had only read Interview With The Vampire before and it was one of my favourite books, so not only was this a great gift, but the timing was perfect for a few reasons.
We were nearing the end of the Year of the Snake in the Chinese New Year, which would close on February 16th. What followed was a shift into the Year of the Horse, which happened to coincide with our relocation from a historical port city in coastal Croatia to the European artistic hub, Berlin.
The Year of the Horse, or to be super specific, the Fire Horse – a rare combination that occurs every 60 years – is special as the year represents high energy, passion, and significant change.
This is exactly the energy I needed to get my 2026 creatively activated.
The previous Year of the Snake meant a lot of shedding was happening when we arrived in Berlin. Strangers and acquaintances alike, people I follow on Instagram, people I met in my first weeks in Berlin, were using this ‘shedding’ concept in customised ways. They created writing salons and small rituals, shaped not only by the symbolism of the Year of the Snake, but also with the transition out of winter’s harshest days.
Even if I’d never been deeply enthralled with or studied Chinese Horoscopes that closely, I keep the representations tucked neatly in the back of my mind.
I’ve heard it said that Berlin is full of Peter Pans – people who refuse to grow up. In Berlin it's not unusual to still be ‘finding yourself’ as an individual, or as an artist later in life. Even in your forties, or mid-forties in my case. You might be unemployed too, but that does not mean you’re not actively doing things, such as creating art on your terms or engaging in community events.
According to David Bowie, who lived and healed himself in Berlin during 1976-1978, this city is a place where it's “so easy to 'get lost' in and to 'find' oneself too."
This is precisely my goal in Berlin. The idea of shedding my former identity – its labels and baggage – and discovering who my authentic self is feels deeply aligned with where I am right now, both as an artist and personally. Finally making the move to Berlin feels like a much needed and long overdue artistic and soul-saving resurrection.
With that kind of transformation comes the possibility of something new. Take vampires, who were once immortal, they shed their old identity and life when they finally accept immortality. Then they must adapt to having a whole lifetime to be who they always were meant to be. Unlike us mere mortals, unfortunately.
The Vampire Lestat, where his character is explored in far greater depth (which I finished reading in February) reveals him as an artist, a performer, once shamed for his creative urges in his mortal life. From childhood, his family warned him that the devil lures sinners toward music and other artistic pursuits.
I can relate to this repression, while acknowledging it comes from multiple sources. In my former life, pre-European relocation, in Australia, although I was trying to establish myself as an artist, I always felt stuck within a limiting system. Limited to the point of screaming ‘there must be more for me.’
My family and the government’s mindset represses artists and celebrates instead monetary wealth and the lust for consumerism. In Australia, it seems creativity often peaks at reality television and, unfortunately, the same handful of faces over and over again. Case in point: when we visited last year, we were greeted at the airport by ads featuring Mick Molloy – the exact same face we’d been seeing since we were living in the suburbs 20 years ago.
Like Lestat, although our centuries were completely on opposing ends (and he being a male fictional character), I was told by my parents the arts were not sustainable, I would never find success pursuing it. Nor would I make a living out of doing it.
Now in Berlin, the city where Bowie went incognito, got clean from hard drugs, found artistic freedom and inspiration and produced three albums, I feel similar artistic freedom simply by being immersed within the local culture.
Sure, I don’t know what Bowie felt, each experience is our own, and I am not a recovering drug addict, but when he said about Berlin, "I can't express the feeling of freedom I felt there", I get it. I can see the attraction and I can understand why Berlin changed him. And how the city healed him.
This morning in a Kreuzberg yoga studio I let go. Allowed my body to sway, soften, my breath to slow and my soul to light up as I moved naturally, instinctively, within a group made up of four strangers as we practiced Fluentbody – a guided movement class – exploring sensation, impulse and emotions.
In Berlin, it’s easy to find wellness practices and like-minded people who understand the need to move, to strengthen the connection between body and mind, and to prioritise self-expression. Doing so is an important part of being an artist, in being human. I lost that side of me in Croatia and got caught up in adapting to a certain way of life.
Berlin feels right for me, it always has. But this year, within this moment, after feeling so artistically repressed in Croatia over the four years spent ‘living’ there, and having grown up and spent most my life in Australia feeling ‘less’, I finally feel more. I feel alive. Finally, artistically alive.
I feel I can be anyone in Berlin, and no one cares who I choose to be.
Some artists can thrive in a remote setting, without outside stimulus, with online networks, but I need to be immersed in everything first-hand, and surrounded by others who are excited about the ‘actively doing’ part.
Four years in Croatia felt like the longest hibernation, but this choice to be in Berlin, despite the higher financial risks, is liberating. Perhaps Berlin has bitten me, and I continue to drink freely from what the city has to offer me, thus allowing the city to transform me towards a sense of immortality, and now, like Lestat and Bowie, I too can thrive and find who I truly am meant to be.
Written by Sarah Jayne