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Hamburg woman breathes life into lemons
Birte Maskallis: “The lemons keep me busy from morning to evening.” photo
© Georg Wendt/dpa
For Birte Maskallis from Hamburg, lemons have a very special meaning. Because the sour fruit is a sweet “flatmate” and a professional focus.
Birte Maskallis from Hamburg founded a very special residential community about two years ago – the Lemon flat share. And this is anything but a community of convenience. The artist breathes life into the citrus fruits and makes them the focus of her Instagram account “Living with Lemons”.
Whether visiting friends, eating raclette, wrapping presents, bathing in foam or just chilling: with pictures and videos, she lets the two lemons experience a wide variety of things almost every day. And a lot of people on the social network find that very entertaining. Birte Maskallis’ Instagram account is now followed by more than 57,600 people, including prominent faces such as presenters Ruth Moschner and Bettina Tietjen.
Celery with hairs
Her passion began with unusually shaped vegetables that normally don’t make it to the supermarket. So carrots with legs or celery with hair. Definitely vegetables worth photographing. “During that time, I was looking for creative projects in which I could express myself on a regular basis.”
She finally founded the lemon shared apartment during the Corona period. “That’s when I started telling more stories and also made videos. And that probably just touched a nerve. There was a lot of good feedback and that fired me up even more.”
So Birte Maskallis continued tinkering. A small apartment was created with a bathroom, living room with sofa, loft bed with TV. “And there’s always a bit of chaos in the shared apartment. The lemons aren’t the neatest,” says the Hamburg resident with a smile. Pillows, books, cups, musical instruments, building blocks, pictures and sweets sometimes fly around. And everything in a small format so that the proportions fit the standard lemons. “I do it all at home at the kitchen table, to the chagrin of my family.”
“People are happy for a cookie”
She also receives some of the accessories from her followers, including knitted hats and mini patchwork blankets. “I’m very happy about the appreciation and people are happy to receive a cookie if their things are in the photos or videos.” The lemons even receive pictures drawn by children and holiday mail. “This is so real. And it’s actually beautiful.”
The project started as a hobby, as a change from the office job. She has been earning a bit of money with “Living with Lemons” for a few months now. “The lemons keep me busy from morning to evening. But I also tend to be perfectionistic.”
Filming and photography is usually done with a cell phone. To get the lemons moving, she uses the time-consuming stop-motion technique. She takes numerous photos and moves the lemons a little further after each click. This is put together into a video and this brings the yellow fellows with the sweet glass eyes to life. “I’m currently learning how to edit films properly. It also helps that I rented a working space in the Filmfabrique and thus have contact with people from the film industry.”
Search for the perfect lemon pairing
Birte Maskallis usually needs two lemons a week for her videos and films. “I usually look for the perfect pair when it comes to organic lemons. There are less uniform shapes. That’s quite nice.” In the summer she always has a lot to choose from. “I can’t make a decision and in the winter I usually walk from supermarket to supermarket.”
The Hamburg native likes to describe herself as a “feel-good manager” when it comes to lemons. And the presenter Ruth Moschner (“The Masked Singer”) also agrees with her. “The posts always put a smile on my face. The account is a safe space where you can get distracted for a moment. Innocent without seeming childish,” Moschner told dpa. She thinks that “Living with Lemons” also shows a special art form with the combination of images, videos and texts. “You notice how much love, imagination and passion is behind it. The little lemon creatures have a soul and you look at life through their eyes for a brief moment. That sounds bizarre, but it’s actually so well done.”
Moderator Bettina Tietjen (“Tietjen camps”, “Das!”) sees it similarly. “I became aware of “Living with Lemons” through a post that ran on DAS. I’ve been a fan ever since. It’s getting more and more detailed and something is constantly being added,” she told dpa. It’s just crazy how a few lemons develop a life of their own and seem more human from day to day. “It’s good to dive into this extremely cute parallel universe every now and then and be able to laugh about it. A tiny, lemon-yellow piece of an ideal world in the middle of the great chaos that surrounds us.”
Living with Lemons website Instagram account Living with Lemons