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No man’s land

For more than a century, the energy company RWE has been mining coal in Germany’s Rhineland. The mines shift slowly through the landscape with giant excavators destroying everything in their way. This destruction of forests, villages and fields, like the climate crisis, is a creeping process.

RWE exercised its power over all aspects of life; social structures, regional politics and the land itself. The powerlessness in the face of losing one’s homeland is a collective trauma shared by many people from this region. But not everyone is equally affected, and not everyone reacts in the same way. In 2021, after a decade of opposition to the destruction of fields, forests and villages, the German government settled on an earlier phase-out of coal mining by the year 2030. With the end of German coal production looming, RWE’s waning power gives local communities the hope of regaining control of their destiny.

Between 2017 and 2023, Daniel Chatard repeatedly visited the region to witness the creeping destruction. In 2021, he started presenting his photographs in books with blank pages, asking the people he encountered to leave their comments on them. These comments provoked responses, and a dialogue slowly emerged. Chatard uses this process to offer space for reflection between people who have chosen different ways to deal with their loss and powerlessness, creating a collective process in which this trauma can be discussed.

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