Diane Meyer

I have been working on a series of embroidered photographs taken in the city of Berlin. Sections of the photographs have been obscured by cross-stitch embroidery sewn directly into the photograph forming a pixelated version of the underlying image. The images were taken in the city center as well as in the suburbs where I followed the former path of the Berlin Wall. I was particularly interested in how often times, although there are no visible traces of the actual wall, there are subtle clues of its previous existence running through the city like a scar. These clues include incongruities in the architecture that occurred as new structures were built on newly opened land parcels, changes in street lights or newer vegetation. In addition to the physical aspects that point to the former division of the city, I am interested in the psychological weight of these sites. In many of the images, the embroidered sections of the photograph represent the exact scale and location of the former Wall offering a pixelated view of what lies behind. In this way, the embroidery becomes a trace in the landscape of something that no longer exists, but is a weight on history and memory. As the embroidery takes the form of digital pixilation, I am making a connection between forgetting and digital file corruption. The embroidery emphasizes the unnatural boundaries created by the wall itself and provides a literal contrast to the concrete of the wall and a metaphorical contrast to its symbolism.