Sarah Lewison and Da War Mal Was
(Anne Elizabeth Moore is an author, editor, artist, teacher, and Groundswell guest blogger. She divides her time between Chicago and Cambodia, where she teaches young women the art of self-publishing.)
I’ve been talking to the artist Sarah Lewison about some time she spent living in Berlin lately. In honor of the 20 year fall of the Wall today, I specifically asked her what she remembered about the East.
Some how, I don’t remember how, I met a few girls from the east who invited me to visit them in East Berlin. Likely, they were a connection through someone in the West—family members who introduced us, because I was curious to go east. At that time it was very cumbersome for an American to cross. I had to pay 5 marks to cross over at Checkpoint Charlie. I remember going with the two girls to a gigantic restaurant for “tea”. there were carts rolling around with really opulent cakes. It felt like we were in a movie, in the 50s. The girls I was visiting were quite hip, had good english and expressed the thought that the most oppressive part about living in the DDR was the fact they could not travel freely and with that, the separation of families.
The comic above is from an outdoor installation of comics currently at the site of the future Berlin Wall Memorial, an engaging public art installation called Da War Mal Was. Comics? Outside? For real? It’s pretty great. This image details the “Westernization” of East Berlin, a process quickly embraced by giant soda manufacturers. (On that subject, I wrote a piece this morning on 20 years of Berlin Wall sales in the US, which might lend some interesting fodder for discussion about how resistance to capitalism gets sold anyway.)
Related posts:
More on Art, Street Art
The idea of comics painted on walls at the site of the Berlin Wall makes me nearly want to break into tears. In fact, it makes me more emotional than the actual dismantling of the wall did 20 years ago. I guess at the time, I didn’t know if it was really going to be permanent. It was a crazy year, 1989.