An artistic perspective on favorite places
How can you recommend your favorite café, park, or shopping street to someone unfamiliar with the area? Sure, there are plenty of travel guides and local insider tips. But maybe it also takes an artistic perspective, thought Amelie Persson. For the project “Favorite Places in Frankfurt”, the Swedish-born artist brought together 20 illustrators from her adopted hometown to create a book featuring their favorite spots. The book thrives on the diversity of their styles, but what unites them all is a loving gaze at the multifaceted city through an artist’s lens.
The book presents text and illustrations of places such as Grüneburgpark next to Westend Campus, the Schwanheimer Dunes, Kleinmarkthalle, the art collective Kunstverein Familie Montez, cafés and pubs like Rote Bar, Maingold, and Wasserhäuschen Fein, the Ebbelwei-Express tram, as well as bookstores like “Land in Sicht” and record shops like “Hoppigaloppi”.
For new residents of Frankfurt – including new students and staff at Goethe University – these illustrated favorite places offer a unique and very personal way to experience the city. Amelie Persson is a Frankfurt-based artist with Swedish roots, who studied sociology at Goethe University. Self-employed as an author and illustrator since 2011, she returned to Frankfurt after a stint in New York and five years in London. In addition to exhibitions and teaching, she focuses on books and comic projects. For the comic anthology “Wie geht es dir?” [How are you?], she created an illustrated portrait of Saba-Nur Cheema, political scientist and research associate at Goethe University’s Institute of General Education.
