Someone to Watch Over Me: Art Installation by Semra Sevin

Ella Fitzgerald can be heard singing “Someone to Watch Over Me” as multi-colored acrylic plates display shimmering images of migrant children that change depending on the viewer’s perspective. The portraits are drawn from the series Crossing Identities, a public commission by the Berlin Senate, based on German-Turkish artist Semra Sevin’s interviews and photographs of children of immigrants in Los Angeles and Berlin.

The layered and changing images allude to the different narratives about reality in times of (cold) war and conflict. When “reality” threatens to become a commodity for political (ab)use, Sevin wants us to focus on our common ground as human beings, irrespective of background or religion. Sevin designed the installation for the guardhouse in the Wende Museum sculpture garden, in conjunction with the exhibition War of Nerves: Psychological Landscapes of the Cold War.

Sound Artist: Adrienne Adar