Coal Wasteland is a series of photographs taken during the artist residency kodekü in the open pit open pit lignite (brown coal) mine Tagebau Welzow in Saxony, Germany. The wasteland left behind after the lignite has been extracted is staggering in its dimension and emptiness, reminiscent of a lunar landscape.
The sheer size of the machines used to extract the coal and move the excavated material underpins this impression: With its length of over 500 m the tracked “Overburden Conveyor Bridge F60” is humankinds largest moving machine, weighing 13600 tons.
In an interesting coincidence, 2019 I built a version of my installation Fortress Europe for Artlake Festival in Finsterwalde next to the other still existing F60, which has been turned into a museum.