Geboortegrond
Year: 2022
Medium: embossing
Dimensions: 39 x 29,5 cm
Project: Borderlines 2022-23 art-box and micro-site
In the Garzweiler open-cast mine, the earth is systematically stripped to a depth of 200 meters to reach the underlying layers of lignite. Layers of soil are excavated and relocated at an extreme pace; the void left behind in the landscape resembles a massive wound.
During a three-month residency, Elisa Verkoelen stayed in Gierath, on the edge of Garzweiler. She explored the impact of large-scale open-cast mining on the landscape and the people living nearby by exploring themes of collective trauma and memory, the eco-social impact of mining on the terrain, geographical grief, and the relationship between a body and a landscape. To visualize the emptiness and the excavations in the earth, she made a series of blind embossings; a technique in which a linocut is pressed into paper without ink.