Featuring Paco Poyato
CJ: I have followed Paco’s work on Instagram for some time now, loving his portraiture and eye on life. Paco showed me his recent work ‘ The Invisible Wall’ Which was made whilst a resident artist with GlogauAIR Berlin. We are living in a time when borders are closing for various reasons, physical walls may have been torn down but invisible ones still exist. It’s a joy to edit and share Paco’s work. His eye for color and portraiture is bang on point. Would be so good to see this work in a photobook.
THE INVISIBLE WALL / BERLIN 2021
PP: 31 years have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The political, ideological, and in some cases physical frontier not only divided Germany but the entire world into two axes; one of capitalist character and his nemesis, the communist.
Today the physical Wall does not exist, but there is an invisible one that continues to divide the country, and it can be measured in wages, infrastructure, education, unemployment; political and economic differences that tip the balance in favor of the West.
A barrier that has been reinforced thanks to the global financial crises that have occurred in recent years, widening the gap between rich and poor, ending the so-called middle class.
The idea behind this work is to attest to this reality that is still in force today, through the study of the landscape, both urban and human, to show that division that is still latent between the western and eastern parts of Berlin, taking the German capital as an example of what is happening in the country.
There is one of those iconic moments of the fall of the Wall with which we can make an analogy of the events that occurred since its demolition until today; This is the song that David Hasselhoff sang on 1989 Christmas Eve at the Brandenburg Gate -on the East side of Berlin, a few weeks after the work to tear down the Wall began-, which announced that change and airs of freedom yearned for by the inhabitants of the GDR, and at the same time, like an oracle, predicted what was going to be the destiny of its inhabitants from this moment on.
The song was “Looking for Freedom”, and it had a chorus for its banner, which said ...
I’ve been looking for freedom. I've been looking so long
I've been looking for freedom
Still, the search goes on
As we can see, to this day that "searching for freedom" is still underway, since the change has not been as expected, at least for the inhabitants of the former GDR.
Paco Poyato Spain-based visual artist working in photography. The themes of his works share an interest in issues related to the current consumer society and globalization. His aim being reflecting how these two concepts alter his closest reality, understanding globalization as the loss of the individual’s identity, in favor of a model that responds to criteria closely linked to the control of power and banality. To date his work specializes in delving into the reality of different human groups that are created around a common cause that identifies them as such. A vision characterized by photographing human collectives that have shared common experiences that, in some way, serve to build, mark and also define the individual identity of its members.
Puschkinallee, Alt-Treptow, Berlin, (2021) Copyright Paco Poyato
Ernst-Thälmann-Park, Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin (2021) Copyright Paco Poyato
Karl-Marx-Straße, Neukölln, Berlin (2021) Copyright Paco Poyato
Warschauer Straße, Friedrichshain, Berlin (2021) Copyright Paco Poyato
Objet Trouvé, Wedding, Berlin, (2021) Copyright Paco Poyato
Tempelhofer Feld, Tempelhof/Neukölln, Berlin (2021) Copyright Paco Poyato
Checkpoint Charlie, Friedrichstraße, Kreuzberg, Berlin (2021) Copyright Paco Poyato
Alte Jakobstraße, Friedrichshain/Kreuzberg, Berlin (2021) Copyright Paco Poyato
Panoramapunkt, Alte Potsdamer Straße, Potsdamer Platz, Berlin (2021) Copyright Paco Poyato
Objet Trouvé, Schöneberg, Berlin, (2021) Copyright Paco Poyato
Friedrichstraße, Mitte, Berlin (2021) Copyright Paco Poyato
Kurfürstendamm, Charlottenburg/Wilmersdorf, Berlin (2021) Copyright Paco Poyato
Skalitzer Straße, Kreuzberg, Berlin (2010) Copyright Paco Poyato
Bornholmer Straße, Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin (2021) Copyright Paco Poyato
Objet Trouvé, Kreuzberg, Berlin, 2021 Copyright Paco Poyato
Hardenberg Straße, Charlottenburg, Berlin, 2021 Copyright Paco Poyato
Follow Paco Poyato https://stillthesearchgoeson.tumblr.com/