I recently received a DAAD scholarship (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst) to fund my being in Berlin for a year starting in June 2010 and work on the following project. Stay tuned for updates this coming year as the project develops…

ALTERNATIVE MEMORIAL: BERLIN’S ABANDONED STRUCTURES

ABSTRACT
This project seeks to map a different historical perspective of Berlin and memorialize aspects of its identity through an alternative memorial. The abandoned structures in the city’s transforming neighborhoods provide rich narratives for preserving its past and present an opportunity to address memory in a more accurate form. They serve as frozen time capsules from which memories can be extracted. Threatened with renovations through Berlin’s many gentrification projects, I seek to document these buildings and relay an alternative narrative accessible through electronic mapping tools. As the buildings begin to disappear, an archive of their memories will remain.