Flatlands

The photo pro­ject focu­ses on the lands­cape of the Nether­lands – the coun­try in which the genre of lands­cape pain­ting was signi­fi­cantly deve­lo­ped in the 17th cen­tury. Hardly any other coun­try in Euro­pe­to­day is as den­sely popu­la­ted as the Nether­lands. The coun­try is criss-cros­sed by a dense net­work of road and rail routes. See­min­gly end­less indus­trial areas along the trans­port routes cha­rac­te­rise today’s lands­cape as a sign of eco­no­mic pro­spe­rity. Every square metre of land is used scru­pu­lously here, every cubic metre of water linked into a con­trol­led system of dikes, locks and canals, and the first stre­ams of air from the sea con­front count­less wind tur­bi­nes. The land that was once con­si­de­red dif­fi­cult to inha­bit swam­p­land, is now sym­bo­lic of the radi­cal trans­for­ma­tion of the envi­ron­ment by man. Flat­lands is a jour­ney into the wide field bet­ween the mental lon­ging place of lands­cape and its actual shape, in which inter­ven­ti­ons and traces of civi­li­za­tion become visi­ble.

Hart­mann Books, 2023, ISBN 978-3-96070-093-7
Text: Ger­brand Bakker (Eng­lish/Dutch/German)
Pre­face: Henrik Spoh­ler
Design: Flo­rian Pfef­fer, one/one studio
128 Pages, 48 colour plates, Hard­co­ver 24,5 x 32 cm
hart­mann­pro­jects.com