WASTELAND/WARLAND/WETLAND

WASTELAND/WARLAND/WETLAND

Commissioned by Waterboard Brabantse Delta ism NBKS

The waterboard Brabantse Delta combines its job as water manager with a fair amount of attention to nature and culture. Between 2004 and 2008, it has helped construct nature friendly banks and spawning beds along the Mark and Dintel. In the background of these constructions a piece of land art adorns the western banks of the Mark between Breda and Terheyden.
WASTELAND WARLAND WETLAND connects the past, the present and the future of this area.
• The artwork connects nature development on the ‘mowing field’ with the former riverbed beneath.
• It displays the archaeology of the 17th and 18th century next to the current water management.
• It links former floodings and inundations to the water storage of today and tomorrow.
• It links ecology and hydrology to land art.

The plot ‘folds’ beneath the pressure of the many contradicting interests in this area, such as agriculture versus estate, nature versus industry, urbanisation versus an open landscape, today’s developments covering the tracks of yesterday. There is a tension between the artificial and the natural, between management and a ‘natural course’, between order and chaos, expediency and uselessness, ‘dream and deed’ …

Design: 2003
Realisation: 2007/2008
Click here to read more about this project.