The everyday life of the Berlin Wall: College Station, Texas/Berlin, Germany

The project, 'Freedom Rocks' by Blake Fitzpatrick and Vid Ingelevics traces the Berlin Wall as a now mobile ruin to North America post-1989 as well as to storage and commemorative sites in Berlin itself. This portfolio of photographs is drawn from the project and depicts twin versions of the sculpture The Day the Wall Came Down (1997-1998) by Veryl Goodnight. The sculpture has been installed in College Station Texas and Berlin, Germany, two locations radically distinct in their lived histories of the Cold War. These distinctions are eclipsed by a triumphalist artwork that collapses geographical and historical context into the sameness of the victor's vantage point. While commenting upon Cold War history, the piece functions to tame or redirect the traumatic legacy of the Wall through a post-Cold War depiction that equates meaning with form while obscuring the site-specific context of place.