August 13, 1961—a day that changed the landscape and the mentality of Berlin, the day the Berlin ... more August 13, 1961—a day that changed the landscape and the mentality of Berlin, the day the Berlin Wall was erected. For twenty-eight years, the Berlin Wall separated West Berlin in from the rest of the world in what Hungarian composer György Ligeti called the “surreal cage”: only the West Berliners surrounded on all sides by the wall were actually free.
In its isolation, West Berlin became a beacon of freedom during the Cold War. Conversely, East Berlin (and the German Democratic Republic as a whole) came to be known as a site of unimaginable oppression. Over three million East Germans escaped to the West during the Cold War, but hundreds perished in their attempts to become refugees in the West. Escaping the oppression of East Germany did not guarantee the happiness of refugees, some of whom continued to struggle once in West Germany.
Combined with "Escape", the haunting French horn composition of George Marshall created specifically for this project, Joan Farrenkopf’s abstract color prints on vinyl of the remnants of the wall on the infamous Bernauer Straße examine the freedom/oppression represented by the Berlin Wall. In the current context of the Syrian refugee crisis (2014) and other global issues of oppression, these photographs also reflect on the concept of freedom/oppression as a whole in a contemporary world and intend to serve as a reconciliation of these global traumas.
August 13, 1961—a day that changed the landscape and the mentality of Berlin, the day the Berlin ... more August 13, 1961—a day that changed the landscape and the mentality of Berlin, the day the Berlin Wall was erected. For twenty-eight years, the Berlin Wall separated West Berlin in from the rest of the world in what Hungarian composer György Ligeti called the “surreal cage”: only the West Berliners surrounded on all sides by the wall were actually free.
In its isolation, West Berlin became a beacon of freedom during the Cold War. Conversely, East Berlin (and the German Democratic Republic as a whole) came to be known as a site of unimaginable oppression. Over three million East Germans escaped to the West during the Cold War, but hundreds perished in their attempts to become refugees in the West. Escaping the oppression of East Germany did not guarantee the happiness of refugees, some of whom continued to struggle once in West Germany.
Combined with "Escape", the haunting French horn composition of George Marshall created specifically for this project, Joan Farrenkopf’s abstract color prints on vinyl of the remnants of the wall on the infamous Bernauer Straße examine the freedom/oppression represented by the Berlin Wall. In the current context of the Syrian refugee crisis (2014) and other global issues of oppression, these photographs also reflect on the concept of freedom/oppression as a whole in a contemporary world and intend to serve as a reconciliation of these global traumas.
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In its isolation, West Berlin became a beacon of freedom during the Cold War. Conversely, East Berlin (and the German Democratic Republic as a whole) came to be known as a site of unimaginable oppression. Over three million East Germans escaped to the West during the Cold War, but hundreds perished in their attempts to become refugees in the West. Escaping the oppression of East Germany did not guarantee the happiness of refugees, some of whom continued to struggle once in West Germany.
Combined with "Escape", the haunting French horn composition of George Marshall created specifically for this project, Joan Farrenkopf’s abstract color prints on vinyl of the remnants of the wall on the infamous Bernauer Straße examine the freedom/oppression represented by the Berlin Wall. In the current context of the Syrian refugee crisis (2014) and other global issues of oppression, these photographs also reflect on the concept of freedom/oppression as a whole in a contemporary world and intend to serve as a reconciliation of these global traumas.
In its isolation, West Berlin became a beacon of freedom during the Cold War. Conversely, East Berlin (and the German Democratic Republic as a whole) came to be known as a site of unimaginable oppression. Over three million East Germans escaped to the West during the Cold War, but hundreds perished in their attempts to become refugees in the West. Escaping the oppression of East Germany did not guarantee the happiness of refugees, some of whom continued to struggle once in West Germany.
Combined with "Escape", the haunting French horn composition of George Marshall created specifically for this project, Joan Farrenkopf’s abstract color prints on vinyl of the remnants of the wall on the infamous Bernauer Straße examine the freedom/oppression represented by the Berlin Wall. In the current context of the Syrian refugee crisis (2014) and other global issues of oppression, these photographs also reflect on the concept of freedom/oppression as a whole in a contemporary world and intend to serve as a reconciliation of these global traumas.