Natalie Gravenor   |    Sunday, der 9. November 2014

For the 25th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, 8,000 illuminated ballons retrace the course of the former inner city demarcation line. Social media is full of snapshots, and aerial photos of the city with the dots of light glowing where the Wall once stood are impressive. The ballons likely provide better visuals than the 20th anniversary domino chain, although that image had some sort of historical-symbolic meaning, although while the Fall of the Wall was a highpoint of the political changes throughout Central and Eastern Europe, it didn’t set things in motion – don’t forget Poland, Hungary and Leipzig (an incomplete namecheck).

Burkhard von Harder’s THE SCAR also traverses the 156 km of the former border, but using a more divisive and painful metaphor. Set to a sound collage featuring especially composed music by F.M. Einheit (Einstürzende Neubauten) and Klaus Wiese (Popol Vuh) and snippets of German news broadcasts and commentary (now newly available with English subtitles), THE SCAR shows aerial footage (shot from a helicopter) of the former borderlands and how the city in many parts still hadn’t yet seamlessly grown together over 20 years after the Fall of the Wall. Von Harder has also completed a second part, which takes the viewer in 16 hours realtime from the Czech Border to the East Sea up North along 1378 km through four seasons in three years. It recently premiered in Beijing.

Still from „Die Narbe Deutschland“ (The Scar Part 2)

Natalie Gravenor
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