Shifting Mountains is a participatory research project about waste streams and closed landfill sites in the Rotterdam region. It invites people of different generations to exchange memories and knowledge about these post-natural landscapes shaped by waste and creates the space for conversations about them.
These days many closed landfill sites in urban areas are converted to new green spaces covered with a top layer of soil, grass and trees. Once located on a periphery of a big city, they become gradually overgrown by it and rebranded as recreation zones. Their origins become forgotten, and their presence considered ‘natural’. At the time of rapid urbanisation, this project aims to explore what ‘natural’ actually means for such places. It looks into the relationship that people have with their environment, and the local politics in which the landfills are entangled.
The project is led by Katya Borisova, Sigrid Schmeisser and Anne Vera Veen.
PROJECT WEB-SITE
The project is realized with the support of Stimuleringsfonds and Het Cultuurfonds.
Photo and video documentation by Miguel Teodoro.
