Excavated Landscapes

This intervention lets walkers experience the history of the landscape in Drenthe. The wild, hostile peatlands there were historically considered dangerous land. But as the peat was extracted for fuel, the area transformed and became structured, rationalised and flat. On the edge of Fochteloërveen natural park the different historical stages exist alongside each other: wild peatland, canals, forest and farmland. Here Patricio Nusselder reintegrates the element that connects them: a peat pile. This 50-meter long structure echoes the way peat miners used to stack their raw material, and straddles the different terrains. A path cuts through it, climbing to the original peatland height and allowing visitors to read the landscape as a timeline of its formation.