The Redemption of Berlin's Memory Landscapes : Yael Bartana's Malka Germania
Keywords:
art
Berlin
memory landscapes
memory work
redemption
Yael Bartana
This article delves into the work of contemporary visual artist Yael Bartana, focusing on her recent artwork, the monumental video work Malka Germania (2021). Amidst the constant struggle over politics, commemoration, and territoriality in Berlin's memory landscape, Bartana's art emerges as a critical and thought-provoking intervention. By leaning on interviews with the artist, observations from exhibitions, as well as a thorough analysis of the video work itself, I propose an interpretation of Malka Germania as a radical rethinking of Berlin's memory landscapes. I argue that the work not only reframes struggles over memory, but also materialises them as territorial struggles.