Ostalgie, a term connoting nostalgia for East Germany, and the East Berlin techno scene, although superficially dissimilar share curious connections to the historical moment of reunification in 1989.

Eine Insel in leerer Luft presents a collection of encounters with spaces, people, and objects from the two respective phenomena as distinct reactions to what author and memory scholar Svetlana Boym refers to as the “euphoria and anxiety” of reunification.

But where to next?

A meandering and often discontinuous work, this collection of essays exhibits modes of research and cultural emergence in motion and ever-becoming.