The Wastelands, are series of large-scale ethereal panoramas of salt marshes, filled with bubbles rising up foreshadowing rising sea levels.   

BACKGROUND

In the 17th Century word ‘Wasteland’ was initially introduced to apply to salt-marshes and fens, indicating land that was deemed to be useless, neither suitable for farming or building. Huge areas of ‘The Fens’ were subsequently drained, turning swampland into fields for agriculture, so ’improving’ on nature.

These same wastelands can now be seen in a different light – invaluable ecosystems that can sequester as much as 50 times the amount of carbon per hectare as tropical forests, literally absorbing our waste.

Climate change, industrialisation, urbanisation and rising sea levels, have put the marshes under threat, so much so, that they are now in danger of becoming a carbon source instead of a carbon sink, releasing carbon back into the atmosphere.  

THE WASTELANDS

The Wastelands, are a series of surreal high resolution panoramas of salt marshes, alluding to the fragility of these landscapes and the role of humans in their destruction. The symbolism of the bubble, references Dutch Vanitas Paintings which signify the fragility and brevity of life and human conciseness. At the same time it foreshadows the rising sea levels and their permanent immersion under water.

It made sense to take this imagery out onto location suggesting not only the rising sea levels threatening to engulf these natural defence systems due to human intervention, but also the prospect of damaged marshes releasing CO2 back into our atmosphere.

WORKING PRACTICE

Despite the fact these are surreal images, it is important to my working practice to photograph what is actually seen on location.  As such actual bubbles are released during high tide on location and photographed in situ. Minimal post production is applied to the images, and no AI or special effects are used.  

REVIEW

‘Van Heek’s large scale photographs – the biggest a staggeringly otherworldly nine by three meters – capture the distintive low profiles of a salt marsh, high-contrast black and white casting the lips and hags into stark relief, with distant sea meeting clouds in shades of white and grey.  Each photograph is absolutely allive with thousands of bubbles that drift and scatter, spheres of light and scales. They bring levity and playfulness and a magical, mystical quality to every image, asking the viewer to see the salt marsh with curiosity and wonder. But they also give physical form to the tons of sequestered carbon leached from the silt as marshes erode, suggesting a sadder, colder destination – for both the marshes and ourselves – to be underwater, marsh and man alike, claimed by rising seas while the last of our oxygen is parsed from our lungs. Van Heek drowns us in these moments, holding us beneath the surface, obliging us to to connect the fate of the marshes to our own’. 

by Simon Sylvester, Corridor 8.  (full review; https://corridor8.co.uk/article/deluge-oscar-van-heek-linde-ex-and-dana-olarescu/)