Where the Berlin Wall once stood
Last week saw the 26th anniversary of the historic events of November 1989 when a popular uprising by citizens of the German Democratic Republic led to the opening of the Berlin Wall, which had stood and divided friends, families, a city, Germany and Europe since it was constructed in 1961.
I started photographing the Wall in 1985 during a visit to the city and have returned at regular intervals over those 30 years to look at the changing natural and built environment along the course of the Wall. No-one could have dreamed 30 years ago that the Berlin Wall would fall in such dramatic and sudden circumstances. But rather than looking at those momentous events, my photographs show how the Wall occupied the physical space between two halves of the city and now, years after it fell, where the traces and scars can still be seen on the landscape.
Berlin Now and Then is an ongoing project and has been exhibited and published down the years. I am currently in Berlin and once again have set out to capture the the continuing changes which make much of the Berlin Wall nothing more than a distant and barely visible memory.
- ‘Brandenburg Gate, 2015.’ Photograph © Colin McPherson, all rights reserved.
- ‘Wall section, 2015.’ Photograph © Colin McPherson, all rights reserved.
- ‘Allotments, 2015.’ Photograph © Colin McPherson, all rights reserved.
- ‘Silver birches, 2015.’ Photograph © Colin McPherson, all rights reserved.
- ‘Watchtower, Treptow, 2015.’ Photograph © Colin McPherson, all rights reserved.
- ‘Kreuzberg, 2015.’ Photograph © Colin McPherson, all rights reserved.
- ‘Marx and Engels, 2009.’ Photograph © Colin McPherson, all rights reserved.
- ‘Checkpoint Charlie, 2004.’ Photograph © Colin McPherson, all rights reserved.
- ‘Construction work, Potsdamer Platz, 1998.’ Photograph © Colin McPherson, all rights reserved.
- ‘Bungee jumper, 1994.’ Photograph © Colin McPherson, all rights reserved.
- ‘Sofa, 1992.’ Photograph © Colin McPherson, all rights reserved.
- ‘Crossing the Wall, 1992.’ Photograph © Colin McPherson, all rights reserved.
- ‘Abandoned Trabant, 1992.’ Photograph © Colin McPherson, all rights reserved.
- ‘Protest, Berlin Wall, 1989.’ Photograph © Colin McPherson, all rights reserved.
- ‘Brandenburg Gate, 1985’. Photograph © Colin McPherson, all rights reserved.
2 Responses to “Where the Berlin Wall once stood”
Great photos, Colin. Love the one of Marx and Engels watching the big wheel!
The Brandenburg Gate shot in 1985 and then 30 years on. Fantastic!