This spring I started a new series: Berm, Dutch for verge. I’m photographing the strips of green along motorways, canals, provincial roads and railway lines.
The idea had been around for a while. In Muurbloempjes I photograph plants working their way through walls, pavements and façades. That series became a bridge: I wanted to work on a more landscape scale.
Driving to Belgium, near Utrecht, the verge caught my eye. The rapeseed was in bloom, bright yellow against grey asphalt. I felt a tension there that I couldn’t quite place. What kind of place is this? Nature, competing interests, traces of people everywhere. Made to be seen, or precisely not? We all know it. But who really looks at it?
That’s what I want to dig into.
The first exploration took me to Sloterdijk and along the Amstel. Ivy climbing a rusted fence in morning light. A ditch with plastic bottles. Rabbits. A small pool stained red.
I want to explore the verge the way you’d explore a nature reserve: through every season, from full bloom to bare winter. At night too, when the motorway makes its own light.
I’ll keep track of how it goes here.
