Contact Sheet 129: Berlin in the Time of the Wall

This issue of Contact Sheet highlights black-and-white images featured in John Gossage’s book Berlin in the Time of the Wall. The goal of his photography is to capture images of what is wrong or dangerous in seemingly ordinary places. He first visited Berlin in 1982, and was so drawn to the city that he stayed for a month taking photographs. Since then, he has visited repeatedly over the years to continue photographing the area. In the introduction to the book, Gerry Badger writes that Gossage is "trying to make visible the psychological effects of history." His ability to successfully change and reinvent this body of work from one form of presentation to another serves to portray history as a living thing instead of a finished and set story.