On the Occasion of the German EU Council Presidency
From July to December 2020, Germany took up the EU Council Presidency. On this occasion, the Goethe-Institut prepared a special European cultural programme and within this framework an interactive installation entitled Disappearing Wall was presented in ten European countries including Cyprus. The event in Limassol was initially planned to take place in November 2020 but had to be postponed due to precautionary measures against the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Disappearing Wall is a unique object. Europeans selected famous quotes – fragments from songs and poems, quotes from their favorite films, novels and philosophical works. These quotes will be presented in the installation to illustrate the linguistic and intellectual diversity of our continent. The Disappearing Wall invites passers-by to take a piece of this diversity with them. The wall is filled with thousands of small wooden blocks, which are engraved with quotes. Visitors can keep them as a souvenir or give them away to friends and acquaintances.
As the quote-blocks gradually disappear, so does the wall. This process symbolically shows that the walls that we build and separate communities, peoples and everyday people can disappear with collective effort.
The installation has already been presented in 2020 in Cyprus, on both sides of the Green line in Nicosia, as well as in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Great Britain / Northern Ireland, Lithuania, Spain, Italy, Greece and Poland. This interactive wall installation Disappearing Wall is based on the idea of Maria Yablonina and carried out by engineer Werner Sobek. She developed this idea in a workshop, which was initiated by the Goethe-Institut.
The project Disappearing Wall was funded by the German Federal Foreign Office on the occasion of the German EU Council Presidency.
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