I grew up in an image.

 

On November 24, 1982, in The Hague, the Accord of Wassenaar formalised the contemporary Dutch socio-economic and political character by adopting a method of corporatist consensus-seeking and decision making between capital, the state, and labour. This method is called the ‘polder model’. The polder model has its origin in the creation of a key feature of the rationalised Dutch landscape, notably in the reclaimed sections of previously submerged land known as ‘polders’. The maintenance and regulation of polders requires constant and ongoing supervision. Those techniques inevitably left an imprint on society.

 

The Landscape that should not Exist questions the meaning of belonging within the centuries-old tradition of the polder model. By deconstructing the interior of the meeting rooms that facilitate wage negotiations to the present day, intervening in Dutch landscape photographs that were part of the 2008 book and travelling exhibition Nature as Artifice and interacting with the hand gestures that were present at the signing of the Accord of Wassenaar, this research makes an attempt to grasp the rigidity in the Dutch national character and investigates how much of our behaviour and activities are disciplined by the built environment we reside in.