Another city park in danger…Berlin’s Mauerpark

I mentioned a couple of months ago that I was making a book. Well, it’s finally done!

Last summer, I spent a month in Berlin and created a photo series on Berlin’s Mauerpark. It’s interesting that the current riots in Istanbul all started because of the government’s plan to demolish a city park in order to build a shopping center.  The message is clear: don’t mess with green spaces in the city! Humans need trees and grass. In Berlin, the city government sold a chunk of Mauerpark (“Wall Park”), a city park, to developers that plan to build a 600-unit apartment building in 2014, and Berliners are not happy about it. Riots haven’t broken out (yet), but there have been plenty of protests and a sustained effort by the community to either block this development or shrink it down significantly.

My photos were taken at Mauerpark’s flea market. To me, this flea market represents a way to value the past and also to live cheaply in Berlin. The property developer’s plan for Mauerpark seems to represent the opposite: tear down the old to make way for the brand new (and expensive). The book contains a short essay I wrote about gentrification in Berlin and how the city is changing, but it’s mostly photos. Once I get everything set up, you can even buy it here on the Slog.

Stay tuned!

Mauerpark, Berlin

Vivian Maier’s photographs are extraordinary….

But her work was only discovered after her death. She worked her whole life as a nanny, and never received any recognition for her immense talents. Until now, that is. Can’t wait to see this!

Femen strikes again…

Fred Dufour/AFP/Getty Images

Somebody fire Berlin’s urban planner….

Early this morning, a stretch of the Berlin Wall, part of the East Side Gallery, was dismantled in order to make way for the construction of a luxury high-rise building. After angry protests earlier this month, construction was halted, but the developer apparently got tired of the endless negotiations and decided to move forward with his plan. Of course, the construction workers did this at 5 a.m. this morning with 250 police officers there to watch over them…

Artist Kani Alavi, the head of the East Side Gallery’s artists’ group, stands at the 6-meter-long gap in the Wall. “I can’t believe they came here in the dark in such a sneaky manner,” Alavi told a reporter for the Associated Press. “All they see is their money, they have no understanding for the historic relevance and art of this place.”

According to The Guardian’s article:

Plans to remove part of the near-mile-long section sparked protests amid concerns the developers were sacrificing history for profit.

This seems to be a recurring theme in Berlin these days.

If wishes were horses…

Nick Cave’s horses are a good segue into another important issue. Horse slaughter has been illegal in the United States for the past five years, but this legislation has lapsed, and now some states want to reopen horse slaughter plants. This is strange timing considering the horse meat scandal in Europe. Do you really want horse meat in your frozen lasagna?

The Misfits, 1961

This is problematic for many reasons. First, horses are not raised to be eaten, so they ingest a lot of different medicines over the course of the lives that are not safe for humans to ingest. Also, the pro-slaughter argument claims horse owners in rural areas need a way to dispose of elderly, abandoned and/or sick horses. Have they ever heard of euthanasia? When a horse goes to a slaughterhouse, people make a profit off of this animal’s death, and then this old, sick horse’s parts are sold for human consumption. To me, this is like selling the family dog off to a slaughterhouse when he gets too old and sick. Can you imagine how skewed the system would be if dogs and cats were sold off to the animal shelter? When someone is making a profit, I have a feeling animal welfare is not their top priority.

I grew up around horses, and I know for a fact they are sentient, intelligent beings. They deserve better than this. We need to find a way to handle the horse population (stop breeding them!) instead of making a profit off of their gruesome deaths.

You can sign the Humane Society’s petition in favor of the SAFE Act (HR 1094/S 541), new legislation that aims to protect America’s horses and the American food supply, here. You can also call or write to your local and state representatives and urge them to support the SAFE Act. This is a step in the right direction!

 

Heard NY

If you’re in New York, stop by Grand Central station between March 25 and 31 to see Nick Cave’s horses.

All palaces are temporary palaces.

So C/O Berlin, the most amazing photography museum ever has left the beautiful Postfuhramt in Mitte. March 8th was its closing night party. So sad! It will reopen in the former Amerika Haus near Zoologischer Garten this fall.