Does the Berlin wall still exist ?
Yuliya Ruzhechka
Yuliya Ruzhechka
Il s'agit de l'Histoire dont la
narration n'est pas en rapport
avec l'époque, mais qui, pour
l'esprit, dépasse le présent.
G.W.F.Hegel
"Leçons sur la philosophie de l'histoire"
narration n'est pas en rapport
avec l'époque, mais qui, pour
l'esprit, dépasse le présent.
G.W.F.Hegel
"Leçons sur la philosophie de l'histoire"
I believe memory and History are not fixed concepts, but living, sensitive, and multiple processes.
My project “Does the Berlin Wall still exist?” aims to show that each personal experience can help us understand collective history. The images and texts do not just tell the story of the Berlin Wall: they open a space for reflection, introspection, and encounter with the ghosts of time. Through this palimpsest, I offer a sensitive, fragmentary, and poetic reading of History.
My project “Does the Berlin Wall still exist?” aims to show that each personal experience can help us understand collective history. The images and texts do not just tell the story of the Berlin Wall: they open a space for reflection, introspection, and encounter with the ghosts of time. Through this palimpsest, I offer a sensitive, fragmentary, and poetic reading of History.
It is a disturbing, polymorphic, ambiguous, and unsettling experience, one that allows us to glimpse the fall of the Berlin Wall in its complex relationship with the present: this event has left visible traces, which have transformed the perimeter of the city of Berlin into a historical monument, and invisible ones—the inner wounds and intangible walls that still endure on both sides of the former border.
The fall of the Berlin Wall was one of the most widely covered events of its time. The mental image of the wall breaking, allowing two worlds to meet, remains etched in the collective imagination.
But deep within those who experienced it, how did this reunion truly unfold? Has the Berlin Wall really disappeared?
But deep within those who experienced it, how did this reunion truly unfold? Has the Berlin Wall really disappeared?
"Does the Berlin Wall Still Exist?" explores the relationship between individual memory, History, and subjective perception through photography and literature. Texts and images engage on equal terms, creating an immersive universe where the viewer is invited to wander through a labyrinth of memory and consciousness.
The project blends autobiography, archival materials, and fiction to create a visual and textual palimpsest, where each layer evokes the complexity of History and individual memories. The fall of the Wall becomes an event both liberating and unsettling, revealing the visible and invisible traces of separation.
This is not an attempt to reveal historical truth, but to offer a subjective interpretation where History becomes a living character, and personal and collective memory intertwine.
Memory
Memory shapes our perception of history and the present, weaving fragile links between these two temporalities in the unconscious. Through collective memory, the past finds its place in the present, and through literature, theater, photography, or painting, it becomes inscribed in the human soul. Selective and fragmentary, memory forgets, transforms, and within this forgetting, a dialogue emerges between memory and imagination.
Collective memory shapes identity. But does forgetting distort it, or does it create a new one?
Collective memory shapes identity. But does forgetting distort it, or does it create a new one?
History
The essence of an event like the fall of the Berlin Wall eludes complete understanding: every interpretation risks being reductive, and only the multiplicity of perspectives can do it justice. History is woven between archives and documents, politics and imagination, memory and narrative, myth and society. Its complexity lies in the constant interplay between what was lived, what is told, and what is dreamed.
