Vessel of Change is a conceptual architecture and video installation that reclaims the Variant, a prime example of East German architecture, sent adrift at the end of the Cold War. A rare specimen of mobile architecture surviving the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent marginalization of socialist history, it was acquired by the Wende Museum to be shipped to Los Angeles as part of its collection of Cold War material culture; here it will serve a new purpose. Video artist Bill Ferehawk will create a conceptual video based on the Malta Summit—the symbolic end of the Cold War—and use the Variant as its mobile venue.

Bill Ferehawk is a documentary film director and artist. His background is originally in architecture, having worked as an architectural designer in the office of Kevin Roche, Eero Saarinen's former architectural practice. Before working in film, he worked for the artist Alice Aycock, DreamWorks, Universal Studios, and Walt Disney Imagineering. A key subject of his work in film is architecture and urban design. His first feature-length documentary film was Lustron: The House America's Been Waiting For (2001), followed by Eero Saarinen (2008); Aloha Buddha (2011); The Master Plan (2014); and Panama Canal Supersized (2015). His films have screened at the Whitney Museum, the Walker Art Center, the National Building Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and on PBS. His work has received grants from the Graham Foundation, the National Endowments for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities state councils. He has received degrees from University of California, Berkeley, and Yale School of Architecture.

Justin Jampol, executive director, founded the Wende Museum in 2002. Jampol completed his MPhil in Russian and Eastern European studies in June 2003 and his DPhil in modern history in June 2011, both from Oxford University. He also attended Moscow State University, and received the Carr and Stahl Fund Grant for research in Europe and Russia. Jampol has lectured widely and published numerous articles and chapters in books about East Germany and the Cold War. He is editor of the a book about the East German collections of the Wende Museum, Beyond the Wall: Art and Artifacts from the GDR (Tashen, 2014).

Donna Stein is deputy director of the Wende Museum. Her curatorial experience includes positions at the Hillcrest Foundation; Guild Hall, East Hampton, New York; and the Museum of Modern Art. She has organized exhibitions across all media, primarily on nineteenth- and twentieth-century art for US-based institutions, such as the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Toledo Museum of Art, the Honolulu Academy of the Arts, the Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts (San Francisco), and the Pasadena Museum of California Art. She holds degrees from UCLA and the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.

Joes Segal is chief curator of the Wende Museum. He is also assistant professor of cultural history at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. He studied art history and archaeology at the University of Amsterdam and published his PhD in 1997 about German debates on art and national identity during World War I. Segal has held post-doc positions at Groningen University and the Germany Institute in Amsterdam. He published widely on German cultural history, Cold War culture, and art and politics. He is managing editor of the International Journal for History, Culture, and Modernity.

Founded in 2002, the Wende Museum is an historical archive, art museum, and educational institution. It is the only organization of its kind in the United States. The Museum specializes in Eastern European and Soviet art and brings to these wide-ranging collections, museological advances, new archival models, and contemporary art interventions to support emerging fields of academic study in visual and cultural history, as well as to teach future museum professionals and encourage public access. The Wende Museum has cultivated a worldwide audience through its powerful and engaging programs, publications, strategic partnerships, and online presence.