the surface appearance of things

Unless you’ve been hiking in the Andes in the past weeks, leaving your smartphone at home, you will have noticed what day it was yesterday: 20 years ago the Berlin Wall fell, beginning with the opening of the Bornholmer Straße border crossing at the Bösebrücke and many events have been taking place in the city in the past days to celebrate this historic moment.

One of those events was the Berlin Wall of Sound, an initiative of the Dutch rock band Noir, from Groningen, which brought together a 200 meter long wall of (bass-)guitarists playing a 6-minute composition intended to be a “commemoration in sound as a counterpart to a commemoration in silence”. It took place in the Mauerpark yesterday afternoon in the drizzling Autumn rain.

Yesterday was of course also the official celebration at the Brandenburger Tor where many world leaders gathered to speak solemn words about freedom won and tyranny defeated. Too bad for many of the tourists and Berliners the area around the Brandenburger Tor was hermetically sealed of, apparently because of “too many people” already in the area; unsurprisingly some of those turned away clearly voiced their anger that an event that was supposed to celebrate a people’s new-found freedom became an event without those people being able to attend.

I could have known this would happen of course so while Gordon Brown was delivering his speech I headed for the Bösebrücke hoping to find a different type of celebration. Indeed, after Merkel’s visit during the day lots of media were still out there interviewing some of the locals who had been part of the events 20 years earlier. But as it was getting late and the rain had become more than drizzling many people had left already. Nevertheless the Mauer Mob was still standing, a human chain of thousands of people formed along the track where the former Wall run its course.

Below are a few pics I took in the Mauerpark and one of the Bösebrücke in the evening. For a general impression of the day be sure to check this photo gallery on the website of the Berliner Zeitung.

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