The Berlin Wall in the 1980s
Berlin - Berlin Neighbours//Nachbaren
In the late 1970s and all through the 1980s I went on numerous trips to the great City of Berlin
Berlin was fascinating in so many ways. The Arts, the Atmosphere, the Underground, the History - and the Meeting between East and West, personified by the Berlin Wall - one of the strangest structures the World has ever seen. A huge Concrete Wall cutting right through a major City, dividing what used to be One, into two completely separate worlds - two entirely different political systems.
It was as strange to me as to everybody else, but somehow I was drawn back there many times. The whole concept was too weird to me, so I started taking pictures of the Wall and putting them together in order to grasp the whole thing.
I ended up with a Slide Show that I called Ich Bin ein Berliner or Berlin-Berlin with music by Lars HUG and Christian Alvad.
I toured around with the Show and told people about my trips and my impressions, and the Slide Show would be on display at Art Museums and such. Always on enormous Screens and with BIG Sound.
It is now 20 years ago the Berlin Wall fell and much has happened since then.
I have been in the archives and have dug up all the old slides from the Show - and more - in order to share them with you on this Website.
It is now all Water under the Bridge, but this is also a chance to revisit a very complex time in German history.
Enjoy!
Jan Thøgersen, Denmark
Ich Bin ein Berliner Berlin-Berlin 1985
Here is a mini version of the original slide show on Vimeo
