Soft Rains
Artistic Intervention, 20' x 10'
Soft Rains is an intervention in the former Iraqi embassy in Communist Berlin. The embassy was offered to Iraq as thanks for their recognition of East Germany as its own country. It has been speculated that Iraq hoped to gain knowledge of nuclear weapons from the alliance. One room of the now abandoned embassy is covered in ash with the soft white negative imprints of books on the walls. The light effects are highlighted by black and white text from the short story There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury inscribed on the window. In the story, Bradbury describes a city after a nuclear holocaust and the wall of the last standing house, which is black from the nuclear blast, save for five white silhouettes where the family of the house once stood. This text appears in two different handwritings: one visitor began the story, and the second visitor knew how it ended. Special thanks to Nine Yamamoto-Masson.
