GERMANY: Knocking down the Berlin Wall - this time with dominoes

Record ID: 817817

  • Title: GERMANY: Knocking down the Berlin Wall - this time with dominoes
  • Date: 13th September 2009
  • Summary: BERLIN, GERMANY (RECENT) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF BERLIN MAIN TRAIN STATION PEOPLE WALKING PAST STAND WHERE ARTIST JOERG WEBER IS PAINTING A THREE-METRE HIGH DOMINO VARIOUS OF WEBER PAINTING DETAIL OF FLYING PEOPLE ON DOMINO WEBER MIXING PAINT AND WALKING TO DOMINO DETAIL OF CYCLIST ON DOMINO DOMINO PAINTED BY STUDENTS AT HEINRICH SCHLIEMANN SECONDARY SCHOOL IN BERLIN
  • Embargoed: 28th September 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVADTAAIALI21D0PLY5K7D6HNI25
  • Story Text: When Germany celebrates the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in November, Berliners will once again knock down a wall. But this time it will be made of 1000 dominoes.
    Each of the three-metre high dominoes will be unique. They are being painted by artists, locals and school groups, both in Germany and abroad.
    Artist Joerg Weber was painting his domino in the middle of Berlin's main train station.
    Weber's domino shows the Berlin Wall, and other landmarks in the German capital. But in the foreground is another wall, depicting the wall between Israel and Palestine.
    Weber's painting attracted the interest of passers-by, which he says helped influence his work.
    "There was a rough design for how the domino will look, but the idea is also developed during painting, and also for example through inspiration from the people who come and speak to me," Weber told Reuters Television.
    Children born long after November 9, 1989 will also play a significant role in the twentieth anniversary celebrations.
    Another domino was designed and painted by 13-year-old pupils at Berlin's Heinrich Schliemann secondary school, located in the former eastern district of Prenzlauer Berg.
    The students have been learning about how East German authorities started to seal off the eastern part of Berlin overnight on August 13, 1961, and how the city remained divided by the Berlin Wall until the night of November 9, 1989.
    Every domino will be unique and working on them has prompted the children to think about life on either side of the wall before it came down.
    "It was really incredible: East Germany called it "Peace Wall" or "Protection Wall" and on the other side, it was referred to as the "Wall of Shame". This showed to us the different mentalities on the two sides," said 13-year old student Emilia, who lives in the city's east.
    The finished domino was among those on display in Berlin's main train station, while Weber painted his.
    The manager of the marketing company "Compact Team" which initiated the dominoes project, Gerald Ponesky, says they are very pleased that the idea has been picked up and taken abroad by the Goethe Institute, Germany's cultural institution which operates around the world.
    "They developed their own concept called "wall travel". They took our wall pieces to Yemen, where people could not imagine that they would have walls there marked with burning oil barrels. But we're also in Korea, in Mexico, in Jerusalem and in Cyprus," he said.
    On 9th November, the dominoes will follow the route of the Berlin Wall from the Reichstag, the Parliament building, past the landmark Brandenburg Gate to Potsdamer Platz square.
    Compact Team have already successfully completed a trial domino rally, but only with 100 dominoes.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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