Kain Karawahn
«The Berliner Summernightdream»

People often ask me the following question: 'Why, in 1984, did you come to Berlin?'
My answer: ‘To live alone on an island.'
Everyone who came to live in Berlin in those days had to get to grips with the Wall somehow or another. My stance was clear – it had to burn. The burning wall was a symbol of my personal freedom to leave the island of West Berlin whenever I wanted and under my own steam.
Kain Karawahn

The methodical setting ablaze of castle and city walls in order to weaken them and bring them to a fall was a method not uncommon in previous ages. In the early hours of the morning, at three points along its length (Potsdamer Platz, Stresemannstraße, Landwehrkanal Kreuzberg), Kain Karawahn illegally set fire to the Berlin Wall. These were his first larger scale fire events, documented in photographs and on video, and lead to his first videotape.
He burned the original negatives of 10 photographs during a later event in the old East Berlin in 1995 (studio of visual art).