Patrick Lears

 

I first happened upon this site one night in Berlin in February 2009. It was snowing heavily and the streetlight only barely revealed a sort of snow city encampment. I returned the next day and eagerly photographed everything in sight – not comprehending what I was seeing. I discovered later that it was in fact a sculptural protest and that this open space in the heart of Berlin had been the site of the ruling Prussian Schloss – destroyed by the Allies in WWII and then the GDR Palast der Republik – a modernist building torn down after the Wall fell – due to asbestos contamination. Since then it had become an ad hoc site for art performances and installations and it’s future was in question. Berliners felt it should remain an open space – a blank canvas. Urban planners wanted a sort of neo-Schloss arts centre. It seemed that everything I pointed my camera at was at once emerging, transforming and being reclaimed by the land – memory being held by tenuous, ephemeral lines.