CULTURAL MEMORY

Cultural memory 

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 many of the GDR symbols and monuments were removed from the urban scene. This has meant that in several places in Berlin you come upon conspicuously empty places. Memory is all that bears witness to what once filled this part of the city space.

When parts of the city are torn down or rebuilt, this leaves traces in our consciousness, and creates an intervention in our mental map of the city. We live in the city and we relate to it. Just as buildings and public squares regulate our behaviour, we too leave our marks on the city. Its identity is constantly changing and shifting.

In the exhibition this cultural memory is experienced in several of the works. The artists take a long, close look at Berlin’s past with its violence and upheavals by letting the present speak through powerful visual expression.