Uster, Switzerland

Greetings from Switzerland. I'm just outside of Zurich where I am serving at the AKKU artist in residence!


It should be an interesting stay!

Along the coast...

It's amazing what you come across in small towns...

“I always felt like a foreigner even if my mother was German,” Oguz Yenen tells me over tea in Istanbul. He was born in Germany and became a successful director there but moved to Istanbul more than a decade ago.

What is the perfect antidote to spending two months in bustling Istanbul? How about a month in tiny Ålvik, which is exactly what I did last month. Over the coming days I’ll be sharing my images so you can get a taste of life in the fjords!

Jülide Yaşar Soncu grew up in France but moved to Istanbul and started a small business. “I didn’t want to live in a country that doesn’t give equality of chance,” Jülide recalls of what began motivating her to look beyond France.

Haydar Zorlu reached the top in Germany as an actor but decided to move to Istanbul to pursue his creative freedom.



“I was, and I am, part of two countries. In my case there is no difference and no border between both. I thought it was normal until I was about thirty-five,” he says with a laugh.

For my latest profile from Sweden we turn to an Iranian born member of Parliament to broaden our perspective on the immigrant experience.

You can read the first profile I’ve written about Swedes of Turkish descent on Forbes.com!



Mikail was born in Sweden yet still doesn't feel Swedish.

Starting today you can see what I’ve been up to over the past few months. Check out Forbes.com and start reading my latest series exploring the lives of Europeans of Turkish descent as they try to find a place in Europe’s social fabric.

Istanbul



Democracy requires dissent.

Istanbul



Across the Bosporus.

Istanbul


The distance between Asia and Europe is small yet vast

Barcelona

"Like it? No. But I have to eat," 77 year-old Erique, one of Barcelona's last knife sharpeners tells me when I ask why he continues to get up before dawn to ride his scooter around the city in search of customers. For more than forty years he has taken his mobile sharpening stand attached to his Vespa around Catalonia.



He says he continues to work because the pension available to him wouldn't support him. At the same time his customer base continues to shrink. Among the other knife sharpers all are well past retirement age. In an age of cheap knives from China that can be purchased at local stores it is hard to imagine that Enrique's profession will last much longer.



Unlike the tens of thousands of Spaniards who have fled the economic downturn fro greener, if not warmer pastures in Germany and Scandinavia men and woman like this knife sharpener are tied to their nation both by familial obligations as well as age.

Barcelona

For months I had been hearing a peculiar whistle sound every few weeks. After some investigation it turned out that it was one of Barcelona's few remaining knife sharpeners.



Enrique started in his profession forty years ago at the urging of an uncle. At the time he worked in a factory earning the equivalent of five to seven euros a month. On a lark he went with his uncle one Sunday and earned a quarter of his monthly wage in just a day.

Riding his antique Vespa around Barcelona he says he has to get up earlier and drive farther for the few remaining customers he has which tend to be restaurants.

When you can buy a sharp knife from Ikea for five euros why spend two euros to have that same knife sharpened when it gets dull? Enrique is just one of many Spaniards being buffeted by the winds of economic change.