DEMOLISHED QUARTERS - BERLIN
Digital c-print, 100 x 120 cm, 2017

With the Demolished Quarters series, the artist develops and applies a methodology of visualizing information on metropolises. This method is based on an information-driven approach that translates shifts, fluctuations, destruction, reconstruction, restoration, and seeming renewal into the cartographic realm. Appropriating and using effectively cartography to make clearly visible and comprehensible what cities have lost, Vardarman highlights the specificity of these demolitions. In other words, he points to the where instead of the how, which helps viewers see and appreciate patterns around the changes in the city.

In the Demolishes Quarters - Berlin map, the marks of the demolished quarters create traces of how the previously divided city is built. By anchoring the time frame of his work in the 20th century, Vardarman tackles a temporarily that is fraught with catastrophes and yet the map insists on being a map and nothing more, nothing less. This informing, bird’s eye view is the artist positioning his work as a facilitator, a catalyst through which viewers can arrive at their own conclusions and his own position is embedded in creating work around visualizing information.