In 2018, after moving to Berlin with his family, Mazen Kerbaj decided to learn German, in his own personal way: one new word per day, that he illustrates with a related self-portrait.The resulting 365 drawings that constitute Learning Deutsch can thus be read on various levels. The book is of course a language-learning tool, albeit an unconventional one, but it is also an open diary that lets us in the intimacy of the artist and his day-to-day life. Page after page, word after word, we follow Mazen Kerbaj in his learning process, discovering his family, his friends, his passions, his habits, his travels or his political opinions. It can ultimately be read as the story of a middle-eastern artist who moved to Germany. The drawings are often funny, but also sad and touching by times; they rarely simply illustrate the words, but rather answer them with Kerbaj’s signature satirical counterpoints.

This project has been published in a book format, and shown in an installation presenting the original notebooks in a fac simile version. Some pictures from this installation are shown below.