xPrevious Articles

News from Berlin

Typed Testimonies on the Berlin Wall

October 17th, 2014
20141017_TypedTestimoniesOnTheBerlinWall .jpeg

News from Berlin - Artist Sheryl Oring takes on a project to document the personal experiences and opinions of people on the Berlin Wall, which will be exhibited in conjunction with the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Sheryl Oring has exhibited her work in various places; for instance Russia, Brazil, different cities in the United States and even here in Berlin at the Jewish Museum. Her focus is on the stories of individuals and public opinions in accordance with various events that have had social implications.

This year she sat outside Bernauer Straße and Acker Straße with her Polaroid camera and her typewriter ready to snap up photos and jot down the experiences of various individuals. These people have grown up during the presence of the wall, and some were even born after the fall of the wall. The name for the series of performances that took place from September 4th through to October 13th - Maueramt - means a wall department. The findings will be showcased in November 2014 when the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall will be celebrated throughout Berlin, Germany and across the world.

She has gathered over 100 testimonials by collecting these stories twice a week. She will combine them and exhibit them at The Kennedy’s Museum near the Brandenburg gate. She started this project to find out what the contemporary views on the Berlin Wall, and did this by asking questions such as “What do you think about when you think about the Berlin Wall?” and “What would you like the world to remember about the Berlin Wall?”

She had a similar exhibition on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in New York. She gathered people’s memories of that awful day over a period of three consecutive days, as a typist wrote down the emotional answers to questions such as “What would you like the world to remember about 9/11?” These findings were then exhibited at the Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina.

See link for a closer look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcl90msTE60&list=UUYHDbP7OHMXfH3uKKUpc0rQ

Essentially she tells personal stories and fosters open exchange. The fall of the Berlin Wall is a historical moment that will continued to be celebrated. Oring has thought of an innovative and intimate idea that will expose a range of memories related to the wall that caused an enormous division.

News from Berlin - Berlin Global