Our hotel in Berlin was near Checkpoint Charlie. Here I am standing in a streetscape created by the extraordinary artist, Yadegar Asisi, whose panorama places the visitor next to the Berlin Wall on an autumn day in the 1980s. Born into a family of Persian refugees, Asisi was educated in East Germany. Fascinated by both genesis and decay, in nature and in human endeavour, Asisi creates astonishing historical panoramas where the onlooker ‘becomes her own director’. A painful but illuminating experience.