Perhaps there was purpose behind the fact that there was no prior explanation delivered regarding the Palace of Tears. We had no idea what it was: some ancient palace? A Holocaust memorial?
We didn’t even know where it was. First the group congregated in front of some ornate building beside Humboldt University, remarking that, “It definitely has ‘palace’ in its name.” After concluding that this indeed was not the Palace of Tears, we turned back to Friedrichstrasse Station and followed perplexing signs leading us to “Tranenpalast:” a blue a concrete building evoking architecture of the 1960s Soviet Union. Faced with the name’s irony-- this was no sort of palace we had ever encountered-- it began to dawn on us: this place, this “palace” served as the main means of contact between East and West Germans. And now I get lost. I don’t know what to say, how to extend beyond physical descriptions. There was a building. There remains a building. It was once the point through which individuals long separated could say hello, where they said goodbye before another long separation. There’s something strangely intangible about the story of the wall. Perhaps there wasn’t enough death: only 139 deaths along the wall are recorded, read a sign in the museum (only). Perhaps I don’t understand enough about life in the East, the level of surveillance, the extent of the DDR’s power. I don’t know. It’s as if the history does not strike me as gruesome and harsh enough to warrant my emotional response. They had their whiteness. It only lasted a few decades. Most survived well enough. And yet I know. I know this cynical voice fails to take into account the individual. It fails to note the artists banned from producing, the academics constricted in their thinking, the families separated. I know this. And yet as I meandered through the Palace of Tears, reading personal accounts and emotional footage, I couldn’t feel. I think I need to better learn the nuance of situations. Until then, I take it in with a perplexed face and stone heart.
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There has been a West African wedding at the church. A woman in a floor length dress (vivid green with twisting flecks of yellow, a sapphire-blue buttress) pushes a baby stroller, so drab and conservative against her vibrant wardrobe and immaculate makeup.
The whole neighborhood feel oddly flat against the bustling wedding guests. The air is still with just enough humidity to leave my skin feeling stiff and heavy. The traffic which passes unceasing emits but a dull murmur: every car seems some flat yet spotless shade of grey. The sidewalk is straight and as the balls of my feet hit the surface the only word which comes to mind is solid . . . solid solid solid. The sky is white, also solid, such contrast to the young mother’s dress. It feels close, almost oppressive (if it were slightly more humid). A limo wrapped in pink tulle (rose ornaments) rolls by so softly I almost miss it, only turning to the sleek vehicle’s purr at the last moment. Men in fitted suits usher it into the church yard as little girls congregate about it, their big probing dark eyes reflecting the starched white of their party dresses. Sweet perfume like jasmine mingles with the aged church bricks as a group of young men and women emerge from the yard. The women’s dresses are tight and electric in hue and pattern; the men wear shiny suits, sculpted jackets extending to their thighs, sharp pleats in pants. The speak in passionate and rapid fire German, the type which passes beyond your conscious while still penetrating your ears. Somehow I’m caught off guard, perhaps having expected instead to hear a more flowing African tongue. Church bells clatter but still as if muffled. I lick my lips and taste only the bleached dry skin of the dehydrated. This place is muted. A neighborhood cast by the Soviets as a simple canvas. Dry yet sticky, extending yet still. It is only the wedding guests which lend it life and what life. They walk upright and vivacious through the two dimensional landscape in a contrast almost more shocking than appealing. Shocking because such contrast can only exist if everything but the players is flat and I am not one of the players on this stage. I walk on and the laughter of young children and cheerful discussion of wedding guests slices through the starkness of all around them. I walk on and I am silent. Solid. A bit of canvas. Punctuated by the occasional empty vodka bottle and stray beer can, the river Spree is decidedly not what one would call clean. It snakes lazily through the city along aged canals, under stone bridges and before grand museums, oozing a scent vaguely of sewage which goes quite well with its brown and frothy appearance. And yet, despite its obvious pollution, the river is beautiful.
The sky is clear and piercing blue and the river exudes an air of pleasant calm as it winds through the Old City. A man plays accordion as tourists wander by in some state of bliss only evoked by gentle currents and old European architecture. It’s lovely. Pausing to lift my hair from a sweaty neck, I lean against the carved stone guard rail and gaze down at the water. So nice, so pleasant. At first glance I think it a jellyfish, the undefined shape floating just below the water’s surface. But this is Berlin and fresh water and obviously the Spree is devoid of the jellyfish we so regularly encounter in the murky waters of home. It must be a plastic bag. And yet so callous a title for this mysterious apparition doesn’t seem right. It’s more gossamer, more transparent, like some discarded wedding veil. Something once loved now lost, “left to the current.” And maybe somewhere in my psyche the thought is forced, some understanding in the back of one’s head we’ve been ordered never to forget, but in the image of this particular piece of water borne detritus, my mind travels fluidly back in time. Back to this street when soldiers goose stepped and storefronts bore signs defining who could be a customer. Back to when millions were ordered to pack (a single suitcase, a yellow star) and were marshalled away. Leather-soled shoes on cobblestone streets. Leather-soled shoes on a street once their own, rendered no longer. One suitcase, soon to be stolen, valuables scattered, things once loved now lost. And here I stand, rubber-soled shoes on cobblestone streets, so welcomed. Don’t even have to belong to belong. It’s lovely here. It’s lovely and easy to almost forget what I was ordered never to forget. Easy to forget or ignore or at least push far back the names on brass blocks, the unerasable fact that on these streets people were marched to their murder. Millions killed. And it’s so lovely here. Blue sky and gentle currents. Ornate carvings and accordion notes. I return my gaze to the ghost in the Spree. Just a plastic bag probably. Some pollution in a lovely river. A shame. While watching “The Lives of Others,” I found myself captivated by the transformations of the characters and the way in which designated titles are challenged through the sharing of stories.
As the film progresses, two main themes become apparent. The first theme, as indicated by Wiesler’s transformed attitude towards Dreyman over the course of the film, is that we gain empathy for strangers when we learn their stories. Wiesler initially demonstrates a cavalier if not hostile attitude towards Dreyman, casually bugging the playwright’s apartment and listening in on his daily interactions. As he learns more about Dreyman’s life, his loves and losses, Wiesler begins to undergo a metamorphosis of sorts, as made apparent when he is seen crying whilst Dreyman plays the piano (in memory of a close friend who had committed suicide on account of being blacklisted). The second theme evident in this film is the concept that individuals can move beyond their title as “the enemy.” Wiesler is introduced as a cruel and stern member of the East German Stasi. When he is shown harshly interrogating a prisoner in the film’s opening sequence, Wiesler appears as a classic soulless villain. Over the course of the film, however, it is revealed that Wiesler is a human, just like those he investigates. The title, “a bad man,” as a young boy refers to Wiesler, obviously drags on him. One could villainize Wiesler, but instead the film chooses to focus on his humanity, emphasizing especially his ability to change, to be overwhelmed by love, and ultimately to take incredible risk to save strangers. As an individual unfamiliar with “spy-systems,” I find myself uncertain whether the themes expressed in the film, especially the former, relate to the reality of surveillance. Are individuals performing surveillance capable of being brought to deeper understanding –as Wiesler was— through exposure to the lives they survey, or have they been so trained that they are incapable of seeing those they survey as anything beyond a one-dimensional enemy? I tend to believe that through the sharing of life stories, we are capable of understanding the humanity of those we may otherwise designate as “enemies,” just as Wiesler and Dreyman were able to do. CERP 2017
Community Engaged Research Proposals (CERP) Completed Proposal Posted to blog by June 5 “University of Washington Honors in Berlin: Negotiating Identities and Mediating Community, Berlin, Germany” Spring preparatory seminar Honors 384C ABSTRACT The primary goal of this project is to better understand and identify how art is used to foster belonging. This study mostly explores “belonging” in terms of the ability of migrants and refugees to feel a kinship with and sense of membership in the society which they now inhabit. This first requires a definition of art, so as to identify artistic efforts through the rest of the project. We will be generally using the definition of “the arts” as put forth by Merriam-Webster Dictionary: “Painting, sculpture, music, theater, literature, etc., considered as a group of activities done by people with skill and imagination.” It is important to, at least to some extent, restrict what is to be for this study defined as art. Certain fields which could be by some considered arts on account of their incorporation of creativity and imagination, such as some sciences and the inventing of utilitarian products, are to be omitted for the sake of simplicity and because there is often contestation regarding whether or not these fields are in fact, part of “the arts.” Thus this project will look at artists in migrant communities (especially in Berlin, Germany), and explore how art has allowed them to transcend positions (from outsider to citizen) in their adopted societies. While currently for this project, the sense of belonging is based upon how the individual involved in the artistic activities perceives it to be, this may be stretched to how other individuals already “part” of the society see the artists. For example, if a migrant artist feels a greater sense of belonging in their new society as a result of their art, does this correspond to where other members of society see said artist? BACKGROUND It was while reading Eva Youkhana’s piece on creative activism through street art that I began to understand the connections between art and space. Youkhana wrote of how young men from lower classes first began embracing graffiti to “gain public esteem.” “By appropriating a moving object,” wrote Youkhana of the tendency to graffiti trains, “belonging of the writer is produced, documented, and propagated.” By casting one’s art upon a space, one becomes intrinsically connected to said space: they belong in that space. Simply put, in influencing a space (especially unleashing one’s creativity through art), an individual becomes entwined with said space and thus belongs there. This phenomenon extends beyond visual street art to other creative formats. In exploring the impact of Turkish-German literature on Berlin, Yasemin Yildiz notes that “Turkish-German literature of Berlin demonstrates a marked entanglement with local sites, histories, and cultural memories that signal complex belonging.” Indeed any form of artistic creation relating to a specific space alters that space and thus the artist becomes a part of that space’s history and character. This topic of fostering belonging through creative art attracts me especially in that in many ways, though I hadn’t understood so at the time, my life mirrors this phenomenon. As a child largely inhibited from becoming immersed in my elementary school community by shyness and OCD, I often felt an outsider. I found solace in reading and then writing, discovering and creating worlds in which I could belong. Through writing I was able to develop my voice and foster a better understanding of who I wanted to be and how to become that person beyond the page. While I am young and have yet to do much public writing (and thus cannot speak from experience to the way that my own creativity correlates to the space I occupy), I believe truly that through creative release, we are rendered stronger and more confident. Through creative release, we discover our place in the world. QUESTION How do individuals employ art to enforce their sense of belonging in a society? CULTURAL SENSITIVITY Firstly, as an American studying in Berlin, I will be exploring the concept of belonging in a place where I myself do not belong. Furthermore, since my question is predominantly dealing with migrants, I must be aware that my experience is not the migrant experience; I, as a middle class white American (to count off a couple privileges), never had a need to work to belong in my city since I fit into the majority population. I also must be careful in identifying “migrant art.” As Sasa Stanisic makes clear in “Three Myths of Immigrant Writing: A View from Germany,” categorizing works of literature (or any form of art for this matter) based simply upon the identity of the creator as a migrant, not only diminishes the art, but serves to turn an incredibly diverse population into a single homogenous entity. By conglomerating people in such a way, we fail to understand the nuance of heritage and the varying opportunities and experiences faced by different migrants. As a Westerner, I can’t deny that I observe and define both art and creativity in a highly Westernized fashion. As Natascha Radcliffe-Thomas explores in “Fashioning Cross-Cultural Creativity: Investigating the Situated Pedagogy of Creativity,” it is undeniable that different cultures define and foster creativity and art in different ways and that “Traditional cross-cultural creativity research has presented a dichotomous view of Western and Confucian-Heritage Culture propensity to creativity as when creativity is defined as synonymous with individuality, rule-breaking and originality, cross-cultural comparisons favor Western individualist societies over CHC collective societies.” This observation that Western definitions of creativity privilege Western-style art is something that I strive to be aware of in my research. I hope to allow the individuals I encounter put forth their own definitions of creativity so I can try my best to not analyze art based on my own pre-conceived notions. I hope to approach this study as an outside learner and observer and will note factors inhibiting this ability as they come up. METHODS Being that the research question involved in this project is reliant on individual opinion, much of the data collected will be qualitative. I hope to conduct interviews with both artists of migrant background as well as individuals leading art projects involving migrants. Seeing that I will likely be doing my community engagement activity at Muanana Refugee Sewing Project, I will be able to observe and engage with those working at the project, and learn firsthand how artistic work (in this case involving fabric) impacts the lives of the involved refugee women. Of course I will also have to collect information through other studies and articles, seeing that I will only have minimal time to engage with individuals involved in the migrant-art scene. It is undeniable that my status as a community outsider (as well as general inability to speak German), will make it difficult for me to interact with individuals; I have a very short period in which to build a rapport crucial in collecting the stories and claims I need. I will thus be very reliant on community partners and Berlin contacts, especially as I work to get a better sense of what I want to learn and my role in this learning. DAILY SCHEDULE in Berlin. This will be tentative and may be a combination of community partner and individual schedules. This schedule will very likely be adjusted, but it’s good to start planning a tentative plan of action. How will you explore this question while you are in Berlin? What kind of background research schedule will you develop before you leave for Berlin? Where will you go? Who will you meet? (Seattle, Berlin) People (names, titles, etc.) Places (location and transportation) Equipment (cameras, video recorders, paints, logbook, etc.) Information you’ll gather (photos, notes from interviews, observations noted in logbook, etc.) REFERENCES Radcliffe-Thomas, Natascha. "Fashioning Cross-Cultural Creativity: Investigating the Situated Pedagogy of Creativity." Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity & the Arts 9.2 (2015): 152-60. Web. Stanisic, Sasa. "Three Myths of Immigrant Writing: A View from Germany." Words Without Borders Nov. 2008: n. pag. Print. Yildiz, Yasemin. "Berlin as a Migratory Setting." The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of Berlin. N.p.: Cambridge UP, n.d. 206-24. Print. Youkhana, Eva. Creative Activism and Art Against Urban Renaissance and Social Exclusion-- Space Sensitive Approaches to the Study off Collective Action and Belonging. Thesis. Interdisciplinary Latin America Center, University of Bonn, 2014. N.p.: Sociology Compass, n.d. Print. Stevenson, Patrick. Language and Migration in a Multilingual Metropolis: Berlin Lives. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Print |
AuthorStudent at the University of Washington, Sophie Aanerud, will be studying abroad in Berlin, Germany. Here are some of her thoughts . . . Archives
August 2017
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