This project was commissioned by "Trophies of Empire", an exhibition project organised by Arnolfini, Bristol, Ferens Art Gallery, Hull and Bluecoat, Liverpool to mark the 500th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of America. The show was a critique of this historic moment in European expansion.

At the same time England was becoming more integrated into Europe. It was very much on all our minds how this shift would affect us. I went to Berlin which I saw as the centre of the new Europe to shoot these images.

This was my first flirtation with digital techniques. I made these montages by scanning enprints and have the results blown up to three metres.