Diane Meyer uses cross-stitch embroidery to conjure, almost ghost-like, the Berlin Wall that once split the city in two. Although the Wall was torn down in November 1989, the traces of its existence remain perceptible.
In these medium-format photographs, certain areas are masked by hand-sewn cross-stitch applied directly onto the print. Because the embroidery is a physical material, it sits slightly proud of the paper’s surface, emphasizing the artificial boundaries created by the Wall and literally erecting a barrier within the landscape.
The stitched pattern borrows the visual language of digital imagery, offering a pixelated glimpse of what lies behind. It simultaneously reveals and conceals the Wall, appearing as a translucent trace or phantom that no longer stands in the landscape yet still weighs on history and memory.
Writing about the series, curator and exhibition organizer Claudia Bohn Spector observed that “the stitching pierces the print even as it mends and conceals the historical fabric to which it alludes. It offers a poignant contrast to the Wall’s unyielding brutality and reminds us of the profound artifice inherent in photography and history.”
Through this body of work, Diane Meyer underscores the ephemeral nature of memory and allows us, in retrospect, to grasp the scale of the Wall’s presence within the urban fabric.
