Beyond Orwell, 2018
When The Power Has Gone ( 2018/2024)
https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/11967066
"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth".
George Orwell, 1984
I was raised in a block of flats overlooking the strip of No-Man's Land behind The Berlin Wall. Access to the other side was nonexistent. Each night, floodlights illuminating the forbidden ground invaded the privacy of my bedroom.
Below, guard dogs barked as they patrolled, within clearly delineated boundaries, tethered to wires extending from a horizontal pole. From my window we threw food to them. For a while they would be quiet, the only sound being the passing city trains as they traversed our flats before disappearing into the tunnel leading to the West.
I was seven years old when I heard a woman scream as she was shot in No-Man's Land, while attempting to flee to the West. The incident was never mentioned by my family or reported in the newspapers; yet, I never forgot it.
139 people perished at The Berlin Wall between 13th August 1961 and 9th November 1989.
In the early 1980s, my elderly grandmother smuggled George Orwell's forbidden book '1984' in her underwear through Checkpoint Charlie, from the West. The reality in East Germany mirrored the bleak dystopia portrayed in Orwell's novel.
It is inconceivable now to imagine that, prior to 1989, 15,000 people worked daily at the Head Office of The State Security Service in Berlin. The total number of employees was around 97,000 with 189,000 'Unofficial Collaborators' (IMs).Moreover, an extensive network of public informants infiltrated workplaces, apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, banks, and political organisations, generating thousands of daily and weekly covert reports.
I created photographs of three-dimensional abstract forms using my own Stasi file 1214/87 and data related to the surveillance of East German citizens.
Reflecting on the evidence now, the complete reality, extent, and magnitude of covert surveillance in the GDR at that time surpassed even my imagination.
16 images (70 × 50 cm) are available.
Shortlisted for Aesthetica Art Prize 2019
Aesthetica Art Prize 2019 | Artist Profile | Christiane Zschommler on Vimeo
https://vimeo.com/317048432
https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/11967066
"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth".
George Orwell, 1984
I was raised in a block of flats overlooking the strip of No-Man's Land behind The Berlin Wall. Access to the other side was nonexistent. Each night, floodlights illuminating the forbidden ground invaded the privacy of my bedroom.
Below, guard dogs barked as they patrolled, within clearly delineated boundaries, tethered to wires extending from a horizontal pole. From my window we threw food to them. For a while they would be quiet, the only sound being the passing city trains as they traversed our flats before disappearing into the tunnel leading to the West.
I was seven years old when I heard a woman scream as she was shot in No-Man's Land, while attempting to flee to the West. The incident was never mentioned by my family or reported in the newspapers; yet, I never forgot it.
139 people perished at The Berlin Wall between 13th August 1961 and 9th November 1989.
In the early 1980s, my elderly grandmother smuggled George Orwell's forbidden book '1984' in her underwear through Checkpoint Charlie, from the West. The reality in East Germany mirrored the bleak dystopia portrayed in Orwell's novel.
It is inconceivable now to imagine that, prior to 1989, 15,000 people worked daily at the Head Office of The State Security Service in Berlin. The total number of employees was around 97,000 with 189,000 'Unofficial Collaborators' (IMs).Moreover, an extensive network of public informants infiltrated workplaces, apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, banks, and political organisations, generating thousands of daily and weekly covert reports.
I created photographs of three-dimensional abstract forms using my own Stasi file 1214/87 and data related to the surveillance of East German citizens.
Reflecting on the evidence now, the complete reality, extent, and magnitude of covert surveillance in the GDR at that time surpassed even my imagination.
16 images (70 × 50 cm) are available.
Shortlisted for Aesthetica Art Prize 2019
Aesthetica Art Prize 2019 | Artist Profile | Christiane Zschommler on Vimeo
https://vimeo.com/317048432
