BERLIN : ART EXPLOSION
20 Years of the Fall of the Wall - a Project of Years 8 -10
In 1989 the most astonishing event in German history took place. After many years of struggle, the Berlin Wall was finally torn down. To celebrate the 20th anniversary students from all over the world designed stones on which they could express their feelings about the Berlin wall, and how it affected them.We were given the opportunity to express our feelings as well, and our painting was painted on to a stone, and our stone was also included in the ‘Dominoaktion’. It was part of an open-air exhibition on Alexanderplatz in Berlin. The exhibition was called ‘Friedliche Revolution 89/90’.
As we are a German and International School and most of us are not German we wanted to learn more about the German culture. Besides, our History curriculum includes the Second World War and the Berlin Wall. And, of course, many of us learn German as a foreign language. Therefore we went to Berlin on 1st June, 2009, for a ten day trip.
To connect with the problems faced by the Berliners during the time of the Berlin wall we first did some extensive sightseeing. In the DDR museum we learned about life in East Berlin. Then, we visited the ‘Checkpoint Charlie Museum’ which told us about the stories of desperate Berliners trying to escape. The open air museum called the ‘Peaceful Revolution’ told us about the revolts held against the Soviet rule.
Above are some photos of some of us working at the workshop. Most of us took a theme of peace; but some took various other themes.
We then had a workshop “20 Jahre Mauerfall” where we could show our ideas for the exhibition, temporarily on paper. We split up into three groups; making it easier and faster for us to execute our task. Above are our final pieces.
Since we only had 10 days in Berlin, we ourselves couldn't project our work on the stone. But, people involved in the exhibition were kind enough as to project our paintings for us, on a stone which was included in the ‘Dominoaktion’. You can see it on the first picture below.
By the 9th of November, all the stones were lined up on the path where the wall used to separate the city. On the evening of the 9th of November the first dominos were pushed, causing the domino effect. This was done to represent how the wall was torn down in 1989, and the impact it had on the city and the population.
By Ritish Desai, Darius Sumariwalla, Lea Straßburger, Swaleha Kader, Maya Hendricks und Mallika Barot
