In this paper I explore the current artistic use of an old watchtower (built around 1980) that was part of the borderlands in Berlin, Germany, dividing East and West Berlin before 1989. As a former command station, the tower was equipped with radio technology to coordinate the monitoring of the borderlands at Schlesischer Busch where the city districts of Treptow and Kreuzberg meet. After the Fall of the Wall, most of the approximately 300 watchtowers in Berlin were dismantled; however, this tower survived and still stands in its original location.
In September of 1990, after border guards handed over the tower to a group of artists from East Germany, the same artists established the Museum of Forbidden Art ("Museum der verbotenen Kunst") and thus started the artistic use of the space inside and around the tower. In 1992, the tower became a memorial, a status officially conferred by the city of Berlin, while the artistic use of the tower continues to this day.
Throughout its existence as a memorial, the artistic use of the tower - in the form of art exhibitions, artists-in-residency programs and the incorporation of the tower in art projects - has been in tension with its mission as a memorial and place for commemoration. While artists and curators have actively and extensively engaged with the past life of the tower in their work, city officials have often demanded that the tower's function and use as a memorial was to be foregrounded, especially during commemoration ceremonies on November 9 (The Fall of the Wall) or October 3 (Day of German Unity).
As a resident and research fellow at The Watch in 2020-21, I conducted eight months of participant observation and helped review and further build the archival holdings of The Watch.[1] This research is conducted as part of my dissertation research in which I study the different practices artists currently pursue in Germany to remember and work through the legacy of the GDR, 1989 as a turning point and German reunification.
In this paper, I draw on extensive fieldwork, self-recorded visual and audio material as well as interviews and conversations with other artists at The Watch to describe the current use of and activities at the tower. I furthermore explore how current artistic practices shape the way the violent past of the Berlin Wall is remembered today and, in turn, how the past of the borderland shapes artistic practices at the tower. Finally, I use my insights from this ethnographic encounter to discuss the role of practice(s) as a vital process through which memories are continuously made and re-made.
[1] The Watch is an association of artists and curators who currently take care of the former watchtower and work under the auspices of Flutgraben e.V., a non-profit, self-organized art association in Berlin-Treptow.
