111-kilometers of files from East Germany’s secret police (Stasi) remain in public archives. In her paper, "Being the woman they thought she was: Cornelia Schleime performs her Stasi file," Sara Blaylock examines how one artist worked through her file in her 1993 photo-text series, Bis auf weitere gute Zusammenarbeit, Nr. 7284/85 (Until further useful collaboration). Today one of Germany’s leading painters, Schleime was then a pivotal force within the East German experimental arts scene: a painter, a filmmaker, and a punk rocker. Sara's paper argues for the primacy of gender identification as a mechanism by which the Stasi interpellated and surveilled its subjects.
More information on Schlieme's series: http://www.art-site.de/cornelia.schleime-kap/stasi-uebersicht.html
Image credit: © Tim Brakemeier / dpa