The City as Archive: Why COT begins with the Kiosk

In February 2025, Children of Time launched its first thematic exploration: a documentary and visual journey into Berlin’s Kiosks. With this first series, we weren’t just observing corner shops — we were opening a much deeper investigation into the symbolic and cultural layers of everyday urban life.

Why the Kiosk?
Kiosks are architectural miniatures of a city’s spirit. Half-public, half-personal, they are more than points of transaction. They are places where memory is exchanged. Where familiar greetings, spontaneous conversations and immigrant entrepreneurship coexist. COT sees them as emotional coordinates: humble, powerful and often overlooked.

Children of Time: The Larger Vision
COT is not a fashion label in the classic sense. It is a longform visual project, built on the belief that the urban environment is a narrative space. That design is memory. That cities hold archives we forget to read.

Through photography, interviews, AI-augmented visuals and curated storytelling, we work to transform everyday urban experiences into lasting cultural commentary. We don’t just observe – we interpret. We reframe. We reveal.

Each chapter brings focus to a new form of the familiar, recontextualizing what might otherwise remain unseen. And with each one, we ask: what do these spaces — and how we interact with them — reveal about the way we live, remember, and connect?

What Comes Next
The Kiosk was only the beginning. As we continue, COT will turn its lens to further urban institutions — places with deep cultural resonance, often hidden in plain sight. Each new focus will expand our archive and deepen our exploration of how collective memory is shaped in everyday space.

Why Now?
At a time when digital spaces often override physical ones, COT is committed to documenting what remains tactile, human and historically rooted. Through this project, we aim to inspire a deeper appreciation for the aesthetics of everyday culture.

Join us as we continue this journey.

COT is an archive. A movement. A mirror.

More visual updates via our Instagram @cot.berlin