Aino Kannisto

"Hotel Bogota Series is a series of photographs that was shot over a period of one year in the Hotel Bogota, Berlin.
I made five trips to Berlin and stayed 7 to 14 days at the hotel intensively working in their premises. It was the most
wonderful working experience that I’ve had so far.
The hotel had such a unique variety of different views, rooms, lounges and nooks that I found it an endlessly inspiring
playground for my photographic working.
It was luxurious to be able to live in the place and breath its atmosphere during the whole working process, to wake up
in the morning and go to bed at night in the premises all the while thinking about ideas for new images.
The awesome staff of the Hotel Bogota made it possible for me with their generosity and overall helpfulness to be able
to have constant photo shoots in the premises while the place was occupied by an endless steam of hotel guests, starting
from the manager of the hotel Mr. Joachim Rissmann who first initiated the project by offering me a free stay at the hotel
and carte blanche to do what I pleased there, to the cleaning ladies with whom I didn’t even share a language and they
still managed to be helpful and accommodate my needs concerning the photo shoots while completing their own work.
I first stayed at Hotel Bogota the last two weeks of 2012, and had the most intense working period of my life. I immediately
knew that it would become the place for my photographic working pilgrimage.
As heart breaking as it was knowing that Hotel Bogota would cease to exist as it was and had been for over four decades
it created a force and drive to my endeavor to use the opportunity to its full extent and to try and capture the uniqueness
of the place into part of my photographic art."

On the history of the Hotel Bogota and its Building (in german)