During a time of heated debates on national borders, “Unbuilding Walls” — the German Pavilion now open at the 2018 Venice Biennale — revisits the era of the Berlin Wall, 28 years after it was dismantled. “Since February 5, 2018, the Wall that divided Germany for 28 years has been gone for longer than it was there. This symmetrical moment in history presents an opportunity to reflect on developments in the former border space since the fall of the Wall,” pavilion curators GRAFT and Marianne Birthler write in their introduction of the exhibition. 

Designed as if it were an impenetrable wall, the exhibition showcases a variety of architectural projects along the site of the former Berlin Wall, presenting a broad analysis of the lasting effects of division, protectionism, nationalism, and “the process of healing as a dynamic spatial phenomenon”. 

Starting with the Berlin Wall, the exhibition also highlights historical and current barriers, fences, and wall around the world in the “Wall of Opinions” video installation, and features information gathered by a team of journalists when they travelled to these border walls. The Wall of Opinions documents the perspectives of people who live at the border divisions in Cyprus, Northern Ireland, between Israel and Palestine, the U.S. and Mexico, North and South Korea, and the European external border in Ceuta.

“From our experience of the wall built in Germany and of overcoming it after 28 years, we can draw an important message: walls cast long shadows—even when walls are torn down, the invisible divisions they create remain tangible for a long time,” the curators write.