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News from Berlin

Berlin Wonderland Opening

October 15th, 2014
2014.10.15_Berlin Wonderland Opening.jpg

News from Berlin - From October 16th to November 22nd, Gestalten Space will be hosting a book release with a corresponding photography exhibition documenting Berlin during its wild years from 1990 to 1996. The city’s contemporary image has in fact been earned over the years, following the Fall of the Wall; a time when its inhabitants discovered the no-man’s land behind it and the lawless heart of the city.

The book “Berlin Wonderland: Wild Years Revisited 1990-1996” was edited by Anke Fesel and Chris Keller, who personally experienced the incredible changes that the city has undergone since the aforementioned years. Both editors have in fact been living in Berlin since 1990: Chris Keller has lived and worked in spaces including Tacheles, IM Eimer, Synlabor, and Schokoladen; he is currently involved in the music projects Resident Kafka and Elektronauten. Anke Fesel has also had direct experience with Tacheles, IM Eimer and Schokoladen, where she managed a concert series for new music; today she directs the graphic design studio Capa. Fesel and Keller founded the photo agency Bobsairport in 2007, which currently represents 80 photographers.

The photographic collection discloses stories of subcultures in the Mitte district and shows how much the city has changed in the past years. Berlin was, at that time, a place of freedom and lawlessness; creativity was flourishing in the many free spaces of the city and on the façades of old buildings in ruins, war jets were re-appropriated for artistic purposes and buildings were squatted. Many clubs, bars, and galleries were created, among which are the already mentioned Tacheles and Schokoladen, places that attracted young people from all around the world. The riotous 1990s was the time in which the city’s reputation as a creative hotspot was grounded.

Twenty-five years after the Fall of the Wall, Berlin Wonderland brings to light an extraordinary time in the story of the city that will touch nostalgic Berliners as well as strangers to that time.

News from Berlin - Berlin Global