Good Fences Make Good Neighbors / Audio podcast, research / 2022
The project was supported by the Goethe Institute
‘Good Fences Make Good Neighbors’ is a multimedia art research on the lessons of the Berlin wall and its fall, and on the concept of border walls in general. The aim of the project is to collect answers to the following questions: why do humans build walls, are walls needed in the 21st century, what do they separate today, and is it possible to live without walls and borders nowadays?
In order to get a multifaceted view, I have decided to gather the different perspectives and experiences under one umbrella. In the format of participative artistic research, within the podcast, I am inviting people from diverse contexts to talk about their views on the concept of the wall.
The project's title refers to a poem "Mending Wall'' written by Robert Frost (1914). Big thanks to Marco Lawrenz, Tobias Katz, Petro Okhotin, Vadim Mojeiko, and Cody Inglis for their grand contribution to the project. Sound design was created by Matthew O'Toole.
During these interviews many important subjects were raised: the environmental crisis that is creating the US government, trying to make it impossible for Mexicans to cross the desert illegally; the core of the war in Ukraine and the difference between Ukrainian and Russian society; the political propaganda that existed in West and East Berlin and that its traces are still presented in mindset of both, Eastern and Western Germans.G
Episode 1 / Marco Lawrenz / Berlin Wall
With Marco Lawrenz is dedicated to the Berlin Wall. How did the division affect the city’s infrastructure? What kind of influence made allies on Western Germany and USSR propaganda on the GDR? How did the fact that there was no need to serve in the military for youth affect life in Western Germany? How did artistic flourishing influence the wall’s fall?
Episode 2 / Tobias Katz / Berlin Wall
With Tobias Katz is about the Berlin Wall and the perspective of a child who grew up in the West side of the city. How can the coexistence of two opposite realities within one city be perceived by a child? What were the daily life differences between East and West Berlin? Howpeople’s mindsets were affected by different political agendas?
Episode 3 / Petro Okhotin / Russia — Ukraine border
With Petro Okhotin unveils the subject of the European wall, known as well as the Ukraine-Russia barrier — the wall that wasn’t fully built. Petro talks about his view on the social and political landscape of Ukraine and Russia and compares their civic societies’ models, being on the frontline in the Donetsk region.
Episode 4 / Vadim Mojeiko / Belarus - Poland borde
With Vadim Mojeiko (lead Analyst of the Belarusian Expert Network “Our opinion”, analyst of the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies (BISS), and author of analytical studies) provides an expert's view on the Belarus-Poland border, the newest border wall in the wall.
How is the migrant crisis a fertile soil to trigger certain troubles in the EU? How did Lukashenko use it as a tool to get more political power? And what happens to deceived migrants in the cold winter forest between Belarus and Poland?
