When Ian Berry returned to Prague in November 1989, after having documented the 1968 Soviet invasion, he witnessed a wave of protests that set the stage for the Velvet Revolution. As the Iron Curtain crumbled, pro-democracy demonstrations in the former Czechoslovakia led to the “dawn of a new decade,” as Berry noted here. In the days before the new year, the streets were electric with change; Václav Havel was inaugurated in the first post-communist, democratic elections. Immortalizing the historic transformation, Berry photographed a couple giving 1989 a send-off with a victorious kiss in Prague’s emblematic, centuries-old Wenceslas Square.
This print is available until 30 March, 2025.
Description
When Ian Berry returned to Prague in November 1989, after having documented the 1968 Soviet invasion, he witnessed a wave of protests that set the stage for the Velvet Revolution. As the Iron Curtain crumbled, pro-democracy demonstrations in the former Czechoslovakia led to the “dawn of a new decade,” as Berry noted here. In the days before the new year, the streets were electric with change; Václav Havel was inaugurated in the first post-communist, democratic elections. Immortalizing the historic transformation, Berry photographed a couple giving 1989 a send-off with a victorious kiss in Prague’s emblematic, centuries-old Wenceslas Square.
When Ian Berry returned to Prague in November 1989, after having documented the 1968 Soviet invasion, he witnessed a wave of protests that set the stage for the Velvet Revolution. As the Iron Curtain crumbled, pro-democracy demonstrations in the former Czechoslovakia led to the “dawn of a new decade,” as Berry noted here. In the days before the new year, the streets were electric with change; Václav Havel was inaugurated in the first post-communist, democratic elections. Immortalizing the historic transformation, Berry photographed a couple giving 1989 a send-off with a victorious kiss in Prague’s emblematic, centuries-old Wenceslas Square.
The second image is a collection of cut-up contact sheets that Goldberg saved over the years from his project Raised by Wolves. He wasn’t sure if he should include any work from Raised by Wolves in Coming and Going since it’s not technically about him. But at the same time, he concluded, it was very much about him. Not only was it part of Goldberg’s past, but of his present too. For this image, he wanted to honor that work, as well as the people in it, and the dreams that they and he had at the time of what it would become: Raised by Wolves.
“I cut those contact sheets up and I put them surrounding a photogram in which the words ‘my dreams’ are written in it,” explained Goldberg. “And I thought that was emblematic of all the kids, all the people involved in Raised by Wolves — the dreams and lost dreams that they had of growing up and of a better world for themselves.”
