Soil in Flux

For the past decades, Germany has pumped water, lowered groundwater levels, and excavated layers of sediment, for the purpose of mining lignite, commonly referred to as brown coal. As part of energy transition plans, the country announced in 2020 the phasing out of its brown coal production within the next 15 years. Mining operators are obliged to restore destroyed land through technological and biological measures, which in turn can lead to perpetual costs. Through this process, these landscapes transform into artificial territories, in which nature can no longer reach a state of equilibrium but instead is heavily reliant on human efforts. The project consists of an installation and a short film that looks at the transformative state of these post-mining landscapes and the associated long-term geological consequences.