I would like the reality before and after my exhibition to be different, to shift the viewer’s perspective. This is the essence of art, says photographer Wojtek Wieteska.

Aleksander Hudzik: You have placed a small photo on the table. In it I can see a kid who seems to be having a good time. Can you tell me what I’m looking at?

Wojtek Wieteska: This is the only photograph from Berlin that I have. It was taken by my dad on November 24, 1969. This boy is me. It’s my birthday, I’m looking at a miniature electric train, a toy I got as a gift.

Berlin, Gartenstrasse 26, My fifth birthday, November 24, 1969, photo: Dad © Wojtek Wieteska

How did you end up in Berlin in 1969?

My dad was contracted to East Berlin as a chef. He worked at the Café Warschau. It was a strange place, only years later I found out that American intelligence agents met there. We lived at Gartenstrasse 26, fifty yards from the Berlin Wall. At the time, the tenement served as a long-term hotel. We lived in one room, and from the window I could see a little bit of West Berlin.

Why are these memories so important to you?

Because they are my first memories, they are visual, and they contain what I work with today. It is because of them that I have retained these moving black-and-white postcards in my memory.

Berlin, Gartenstrasse 26, summer 2012 © Wojtek Wieteska

Did I hear correctly: black-and-white memories?

Yes, because that reality was gray. The only color I remember are red apples for Christmas, covered in transparent red icing. When I bit into them, the shell of crystalline icing cracked under my teeth, and then soft flesh. This was the first sensual experience I remember.

What was your child