Three Fairview students fascinated with Berlin Wall graffiti win national history contest

Three Fairview High School students grew fascinated with the protest art of the Berlin Wall during the Cold War — the designs, illustrations and other artistic graffiti — after studying the subject in class. Students Emma Taylor, Natasha Uzdensky and Leah Jeong found out recently that others around the United States also were interested in the topic. They took home a first place award for their work at this year’s National History Day competition held at the University of Maryland from June 9 to 13. The competition is an annual event to highlight student projects regarding several topics in history. “We’re all pretty interested in art history and social movements and social change,” Uzdensky said. “We thought that this topic was a good medium point between those ideas.” Choosing to research connections between the graffiti on the Berlin Wall and the birth of protest art, the group of incoming high school juniors did research together, browsed through art archives and shuffled through newspaper clippings. “We already knew about historical analysis to an extent. But doing the project put it into a new perspective, because we were able to synthesize a lot of arguments that professional scholars had. but also create...