A City Called Heerlen (2015)
Publication (2015), 29 x 23 cm, handbound, design by Tim Hollander, all images are available as print, contact me for infomation about price and production.
Heerlen is a municipality in the Eastern Mining Area in the Netherlands and the former centre of the mining industry. This is an area that grew from a small farming village into an industrial town by the late 19th century and provided work for thousands of people, both from the Netherlands and neighbouring countries. Town districts arose around the mining settlements and the mines formed a connection between the town and its inhabitants, from all social strata. Piles of coal, mining towers, water towers, cooling towers and high chimneys dominated the town view.
The photo project (A city called) Heerlen investigates what happens to an industrial city (and its inhabitants) when it loses its industrial raison d’être and falls into a continuous decline that is still noticeable today. The project focusses on the impact of the political decisions that led to the shutdown of the mining industry in the early seventies on Heerlen and its surrounding areas. The research comprises a documentation of the area on a psychological and geographical level, and the way these two are interconnected. Apart from carrying out historical and theoretical research on the area, the work was made by interviewing 25 (former) residents of the city. None of the people I interviewed, showed any enthusiasm for the town as it is now and they all referred to the past - to a time when the mining industry and the town still went hand in hand. However, during each conversation I found that there was also hope: a careful suggestion that there was still a chance that everything would be alright by giving the mining history a monumental place in Dutch history. This is a project about a town and its history, its tale and the changes it went through.
