A research project that tells the story of an Industrial area coexisting with a Natura protected area, as rare species of flora and fauna are thriving there due to the water and soil contamination.

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When arriving to the Netherlands by plane one can notice the artificial landscape in the industrial area of Budel Dorplein. From the sky the large fields of solar panels look like lakes. And this is what they actually used to be. Former waste ponds, nowadays mounds, covered with solar panels.

The project took place in an area where zinc factories have been operating for almost 130 years. Focus was on the waste management over the years, the artificial landscape and the evolution of new ecosystems. 

The soils in the region are anthropologically enriched in Cd and Zn and returning the landscape in its original state is no longer possible.

While humans try to justify damage with terms such as Historical Pollution, new ecosystems adapt and evolve in this disrupted environment formed by interdependent entities, not necessarily resembling what was present before and not knowing how the future will affect them. Some said that Remediation of such sites might in fact destroy the new habitat.

Due to this unique condition, this site was the first – with many to follow- where an industrially polluted area was protected by law for nature conservation.

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The history of the factory and it's surroundings is rewritten, the stories of the flora and fauna are told and new stories arise.

 

Part of the exhibition The Symbiocene Forest,

Bioart Laboratories,

Dutch Design Week 2019, 

Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

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Prints, various organic and inorganic material