mutter heimat
with Derya Binisik, 8 min, Berlin, 2020
Mutter Heimat examines the Soviet War Memorial in Berlin’s Treptower Park, questioning the narrative embedded in its socialist-realist architecture. The work focuses on what is absent, unspoken, or marginalized, offering a subtle, subjective dialogue between past and present, objects and visitors.
Monuments often glorify the stories of victors, imposing order and interpretation onto space while leaving little room for counter-narratives. By attending to gaps, accidents, and hidden perspectives, this video challenges the monument’s authoritative voice and opens a space for alternative histories.
Monuments are not fixed or finished; their meaning emerges through the audience, through how individuals inhabit and remember the space. Mutter Heimat attempts precisely this: to explore the unseen, to resist the imposed story, and to reclaim a sense of intimacy, ambiguity, and multiplicity within a seemingly rigid site of memory.
