Weekly Photo Challenge: Walls

It has been a few weeks since I posted one of the Weekly Photo Challenges from The Daily Post so I thought I had better get back onto that horse.  Sorry life has been getting in the way of my travel blog.  This week’s challenge is Wall – Share an image of a wall that reveals something about a place, people or you.  What a great topic and something I look forward to exploring.

The East Side Gallery in Berlin. A ever-present monument to the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

I always try to post my first reaction to these photo challenge prompts – and to me Wall = Berlin Wall.  A reminder of a dark part of our history when a country and a people were divided across geographic and political lines.  The East Side Gallery is preserved as a monument to the fall of the Berlin wall and is used by artists to illustrate the feelings and emotions of the current generation.  It was truly a momentous day on 9 November 1989 when due to a “slight” slipup during a press conference Gunter Schabowski announced the border crossing regulations would be modified – unfortunately nobody told Schabowski much more than that so people flooded the wall and eventually at about 10:30pm that night the gates were opened and the wall which had stood since 1961.

The towering Peace Wall in Belfast. Used to separate Unionist and Nationalist neighbourhoods in Northern Ireland

Walls however still remain in numerous parts of the world as a means of separating people – still standing as an imposing line across Belfast is the Peace Walls.  Used as a way of minimising inter-communal violence between Catholic (nationalists) and Protestant (unionists) since 1969.  The walls have been used to maintain a relative peace in Northern Ireland – originally build as temporary structures over the years they have gotten bigger and longer.  As a young person who grew up in the safe quiet streets of Australia I am not qualified nor entitled to comment about the merits of the peace walls nor there necessity, interestingly in a survey in 2012 found 69% of residents felt the walls were still necessary due to potential violence.  It is great to see however that there are moves to remove the walls by 2023.

Walls are not just used to divide and separate us – for centuries humans have used them as a forum for self expression.

Melbourne’s Laneways offer visitors an ever changing art gallery of street art.

Despite being used throughout history as a means of dividing people and keeping people separate.  It is humbling though to see that people throughout history have also used walls as a means of self expression – as way of describing the world and a means of transmitting their message to others.  Melbourne’s CBD laneways provide a never ending and ever changing canvas of street art.  Melbourne is regarded as one of the street-art capitals of the world, with many locations supported by the local government as places where artists can present their work.  Spending a day wandering the lanes is a great way to sample the amazing world of street art and marvel at the creativity and expressiveness of these artists.

That is my response to the prompt of WALL – share your blog in the comments and let me see what the prompt Wall means to you.  Also please check out the other amazing entries over at The Daily Post – Weekly Photo Challenge.