The image of the Southwest Delta is being rewritten. Farms are getting bigger, the energy transition more visible, tourists more numerous and villages emptier. The land is being redeveloped and water is taking on many meanings. A new symbiosis between users and the existing space is emerging. This photo essay tells of beauty, of old certainties that disappear and a new reality that has taken their place.
For centuries, the Zeeland archipelago was a symbolic balance of socio-, agro- and biodiversity. Always under the eternal threat of the whims of the water, though.
The muscular landscape
The drastic Delta Works after the storm surge of 1953 deliberately broke the natural balance with hard boundaries in exchange for safety. The inland waterways died behind proud high dikes. Under the influence of engineering and new nature, the landscape was constantly tinkered with. The sum of changes creates a muscular landscape in which the dikes, dams, towering wind turbines, mighty locks and the vastness of the water form an impressive interplay.
Patterns of change
The southwestern delta has long maintained the illusion of a vital rural region. But here and there the cracks appear, like a slow disaster that is taking place in Zeeland. Through a combination of service, modesty and division, the region can hardly resist the destructive patterns that are creeping out in Zeeland. Increasing tourism, the construction of energy facilities and economic changes are leaving traces through the delta. They leave room for a sense of fleeting threat or permanent temporality. The close bond between the village centers and the surrounding lands, the proceeds of diligent labor and the experience of a divine providence that gave their blessing to Zeeland existence for centuries is in doubt. A new reality takes its place.
Grandeur and splendor
The old rural reality and the new dynamics that find their place in the natural space form a duality. Under high skies, the landscape, the colors and the use change steadily with the rhythm of the days and the succession of the seasons. The eternal alliance between land and sea shows its grandeur and splendor here.
