This book was already formed as an artwork when it came to my attention during my research at the former central Stasi remand prison, Berlin-Hohenschönhausen. It’s a 1969 GDR translation of To Kill a Mockingbird with markings by inmates and Stasi monitors – the German title is Wer die Nachtigall stört. The book holds a meta-text where inmates underlined phrases with their fingernails, and Stasi monitors pointed out the passages with pencil in the margins. Other officials stamped, redacted, repaired and then sent the book out again on loan. The artist book is a limited edition of 200 copies of this palimpsest: a collaboration with the many anonymous prisoner-readers and their monitors, reproduced with permission from the Estate of Harper Lee, Rowolt Verlag Publishers and in cooperation with the Gedenkstätte Berlin-Hohenschönhausen.
The novel deals with themes that parallel the inmates’ experiences and they singled out phrases about prejudice, freedom, injustice and the miscarriage of justice. The Stasi monitors left soft pencil strokes in the margins pointing out these underlinings. They also tore some of the pages out. Many institutional stamps, aged cellophane tape and golden glue stripes, cigarette burns, and other leavings attest to what the book witnessed in human hands, and in lives at this secret prison. This book and others were rewards during Stasi interrogations, loaned library-style and signed out to prison cells, not prisoners. According to the library card, the copy of Wer die Nachtigall Stört was read at least thirty times between 1982 and 1989.
Civilian secret policing, suspicion, surveillance and interrogation are hallmarks of the last years of the GDR, and so are false trials, misjudgement and twisted perceptions of intent. These conditions also turn the events in Harper Lee’s novel, albeit in a different time and context. I recently learned that the Stasi allowed prisoners to read To Kill a Mockingbird because it exposes crucial weaknesses in the West: prejudice and racial injustice. As an altered book, this stands as a counter narrative to the appearance of justice in the GDR.
I worked closely with Vanessa Adler, the publisher of Argobooks (Berlin) to reprint the original at bibliophile standards (edcat listing here). We also designed a Kickstarter campaign together to fund the project. This was during the American protests in the summer of 2020, a time when the topics of race and the miscarriage of justice were brought into stark light. The 200 copies are possible thanks to our Kickstarter supporters, and Konstantine “Fox” Bardash (illustration), and Sicilia Shine (video), and – essentially – to the anonymous individuals who transformed this book.
Project promotional video here
The DAIS and US Embassy in Berlin sponsored a conversation with Prof. Dr. Knut Ebeling, Kunsthochschule Weißensee, on November 6 2020. The discussion deals with the research, accurate reproduction, attribution and translation.
