Karl-Marx-Allee and Kreshchatik 2005

The work is a subjective analysis of two boulevards of Stalinist architecture in Berlin and Kyiv. Laura Horelli has lived on Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin since 2001 and visited Kreshchatik, a similar boulevard in Kyiv. Images from both streets are placed on panels, arranged according to loose categories—such as the room where Horelli stayed on each street, the view from the window, organised public events, informal ways of spending time on the streets, ways in which the historical architecture is treated, etc. A text that can be taken away by the public is placed as a stack on a pedestal. The text is a hybrid between a diary, a news report and a letter, mixing personal everyday observations with factual information. The work looks at the terms “familiar,” “common,” and “other,” and tries to explore these equivocal categories. Both images and text describe the streets independently and construct a manifold representation of these places.