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BELLINGHAM – A touring photo exhibition commemorating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall will be on display at Western Washington University from April 21 to June 2.
“Icons of a Border Installation: Photographic Search for Traces in Today’s Berlin,” will be on display at Western’s Wilson Library. The exhibition, now on a tour of the United States under the auspices of the Goethe-Institute San Francisco, will make its only appearance in the Pacific Northwest at Western. A film showing, a talk and a reading will highlight the exhibition hosted by Western Libraries.
The exhibition, which consists of 15 photo panels supplemented by text, is based on photos taken by students of the University of Paderborn as part of a seminar they attended. The goal of the seminar was to track down visible and invisible remnants of the Berlin Wall with cameras and acoustic recording devices. This involved finding forgotten wall remnants, deserted watchtowers or the still visible border strip, as well as mental traces of a possible “Wall in the Mind,” which on occasion become evident in seemingly anachronistic attitudes and behavior of Berlin residents.
“The fall of the Berlin Wall may have marked the end of the Cold War world order, but despite its almost total physical absence, the Wall is still present as a resonant symbol of past and enduring divisions – and of unified Germany’s struggles to find its place in the European Union and in the world,” said Cornelius Partsch, associate professor of Modern & Classical Languages at Western.
The evening before the exhibition opens at Western, at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, April 20, the Pickford Cinema will show Martin Ritt’s classic 1965 film, “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.”
At 3 p.m. on Friday, April 24, in the Wilson Library Reading Room (fourth floor) David Clay Large, professor of History at Montana State University, author and specialist in modern German history, will give a talk titled: "The ugliest border: Berlin and its wall during the Cold War and beyond.” His talk, free and open to the public, will be followed by a reception.
Faculty and students from the German Section will offer a reading of selected literary works dealing with the Cold War and the Wall at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, May 27, on the Library Skybridge.
The exhibition has images and texts in both German and English. In addition, teaching materials to supplement the exhibit are available for downloading at http://www.norcal.aatg.org/mauer.html.
For a period of more than 28 years, the Berlin Wall divided the city of Berlin, effectively turning West Berlin into an island inside the Eastern Bloc. The government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) built the Wall in 1961, calling it an “anti-fascist protective barrier,” because more than 2.6 million East Germans fled to West Berlin or West Germany between 1949 and 1961. The Berlin Wall, regarded as the most recognizable symbol of the Cold War, was opened on Nov. 9, 1989.
Print-quality photos are available in the University Communications Photo Center at http://news.wwu.edu/go/doctype/1538/31900/.
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