Leipzig '89 ­
Revolution Reloaded

“Free­dom of trav­el instead of mass exo­dus” was the demand of the peo­ple in the court­yard of St. Nicholas Church. The Mon­day demon­stra­tions in Leipzig in Octo­ber 1989 were piv­otal his­tor­i­cal moments of the Peace­ful Rev­o­lu­tion in the GDR, and their slo­gans remain unfor­get­table. 70,000 peo­ple took to the streets of the Sax­on metrop­o­lis. The peace­ful protests sub­se­quent­ly spread mas­sive­ly through­out the coun­try, shak­ing up the GDR’s pow­er struc­tures and ulti­mate­ly bring­ing them down.

The exhi­bi­tion exper­i­ment ​“Leipzig ​’89 — Rev­o­lu­tion Reloaded” at the Ger­man His­tor­i­cal Muse­um in Berlin demon­strates how much his­to­ry is influ­enced by chance, deci­sion, and action. In the inter­ac­tive graph­ic nov­el, vis­i­tors reen­act the events of Octo­ber 1989 with sev­en char­ac­ters, mak­ing their own deci­sions and thus influ­enc­ing the course of the game. The nov­el and the seri­ous game were devel­oped by Play­ing His­to­ry, and we designed the accom­pa­ny­ing scenography.