Graduation project
How to Hide a Mountain
Sigrid Schmeisser
A research project looks closely at the engineering and industrialisation of what is designed not to be seen—the landfill and its mythology.
Over decades, landfills have come to signify the limitations of prevailing economic models, which leave surplus material that can only be reduced in size and redistributed across space. Shrinking suitable areas for disposal further open up the dilemma of trading ecosystems against landfills, as well as acceptable contamination thresholds if they were to leak. Sigrid Schmeisser investigates the role of the landfill today and reframes it as a post-natural land body. By deconstructing its engineering and aftercare, the myths of material culture and control are revealed. Her counternarrative offers a different reading of the 'geospatial other' and their inherent contradictions on the alleged periphery.