Henrik Spohler: Flatlands

For his latest project, Henrik Spohler traveled to the Netherlands on five extended trips in 2020/21, totaling 7,500 km. On these journeys he looked at this country in the heart of Western Europe from the perspective of an outsider. Flatlands is a photographic examination of landscape in the very country, where the genre of landscape painting was developed in the seventeenth century. Today, the Netherlands is the most densely populated country in Europe, crisscrossed by a complex network of roads, canals and railroads. Seemingly endless industrial parks along the traffic routes characterize the landscape and indicate economic prosperity. Every square meter of land is used, every cubic meter of water is integrated into a system of dams, locks, and canals. The country, once considered hard-to-inhabit marshland, now symbolizes the radical transformation of the environment by man. Spohler and his images demonstrate how a cultural landscape, marked by complex historical, economic and social references, can be read and represented.