With the exhibit "1988", we invite you to travel back in time to a year often seen as a prologue to the momentous times of 1989 and the early nineties. The events in Berlin and Poland are its focus. In Poland, the Solidarność strikes and round-table discussions between the government and the opposition, and later the free elections of 1989, were well on their way. This was the start of a changing tide in Europe – one which would later lead to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In Berlin, the year 1988 was characterized by countless clashes between the Berlin Senate and the city’s leftist-alternative scene. At the same time, a writers’ congress was held as part of the European Capital of Culture program, at which writers from East and West dreamed of a Europe without borders. In September 1988, the International Monetary Fund convened, a symbol then of that which we call globalization today. Tens of thousands of leftist demonstrators took to the streets to protest the IMF’s meeting.

The photographs of Ann-Christine Jansson and quotes from Uwe Radas novel 1988 reveal a world that seems entirely untouched by what is to happen just one year later. Everyday life, so banal in its strangeness, making you believe that this was the way it had always been – and would so remain.

Supported by funds from the district culture fund of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg as part of the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018.

Opening: 12 April 2018, 19:30

A catalog with the photographs of Ann-Christine Jansson accompanies the exhibit.

ISBN 978-3-935810-11-1