Eco-political trenches of Dutch land art

‘God created the world, but the Dutch created the Netherlands.’ It is easy to picture the Dutch as modern Poseidons – controlling water, sculpting landscapes and constructing vast structures. They refined their expertise into an art form, shaping the living landscape into a captivating canvas for land art long before the global Land Art movement emerged.
However, before we romanticize this narrative, it is important to recognize that reclaiming land is also the definition of colonization – subjugating nature and exploiting it through systematic occupation. The word trenches in the title could not be more apt; it serves as a fitting metaphor. On one hand, it refers to the literal feats of engineering shaped by the Netherlands’ ongoing struggle against the sea. On the other, it alludes to deeper, more contentious political trenches – disputes over land use, ownership, identity, and the ecological cost of these grand engineering feats. The Dutch did not merely carve out land; they carved out eco-political trenches where art, nature and power intersect.

Investigating these eco-political trenches of land reclamation, Claiming land for art, claiming land through art sought to uncover the colonial implications embedded within contemporary land art, situating it within the historical framework of the Netherlands’ largest land reclamation project, Flevoland. Land art emerged in America in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a response to the commercialization and institutionalization of art in museums. Though plentiful, institutionalized art often reaches a limited audience and is not immune to influences from the social world of the wider public. Land art rejected the commercialization of the art world, focusing instead on permanence and nature. It was often associated with environmentalism, as seen in the works of artists like Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer.

Emily Eliza Scott, a guest speaker at the event and an assistant professor in art history of art, architecture & environmental studies at the University of Oregon, notes that many of these works were located in remote, natural settings far from urban centres, which provided them with a tabula rasa – a canvas ripe for appropriation, ‘not yet claimed by anyone and certainly not inhabited’. In this context, the similarities between America and the Netherlands become apparent. In contrast to the vast, open spaces of the American West – where settlers could claim seemingly infinite lands once inhabited by Indigenous peoples through a process of erasure – the Dutch chose to build their own land through the process of inpoldering. They conquered nature, tamed it, bent it to their will, and handed city planners a blank slate – a tabula rasa of their own.
At its core, land art is a dialogue between humanity and the land. It transcends borders, adapts to each region’s unique environmental, cultural and political context, and, as Scott argues, provides a critical reflection on how ownership of the earth’s surface is distributed.

Political Dimensions of Land Art: Colonial Legacy

Even in its remote, often uninhabitable settings, land art wields considerable media power, gaining visibility primarily through digital consumption while detaching the works from their local context. Consequently, viewers rarely consider the socio-political or environmental histories tied to the reclaimed landscapes these artworks inhabit. The mass media presence often emphasizes aesthetics over meaning, leading to superficial engagement.
In Flevoland, however, as Anja Novak, an assistant professor of contemporary art at the University of Amsterdam, notes in Precarious Ground: An Experiential Approach to Land Art in Flevoland, land art serves to underscore the cultivation of this newly created Dutch territory. Unlike art designed for remote viewing, the Land Art Flevoland collection – featuring works by renowned artists that transform the polder landscape with steel, concrete, stone, trees and earth – functions as an on-site expression intended to make the land more inhabitable. In this case, land art is forced to grapple with the political complexities of ownership and identity, acknowledging that this land is not a blank slate but a historically rich site poised for future occupation.

Dutch polder-making expertise was exported to colonies such as Indonesia and Suriname, extending land control alongside colonial ambitions. Within the Netherlands, this ambition manifested in internal projects like the Colonies of Benevolence – a 19th-century series of agricultural settlements reminiscent of colonial plantations. These settlements, as Hanneke Stuit, an assistant professor of Literary and Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam, argues, should also be considered land art, as they altered the natural landscape and reshaped the socio-economic structures. Aimed at addressing poverty through ‘rehabilitative’ labour, these colonies enforced discipline among vulnerable residents working the new lands in organized, free, and unfree rural communities. This form of social engineering was both paternalistic and disciplinary, reflecting a colonial mindset within the Netherlands – one that used land as a tool of control and social order.
While not explicitly modelled after the social upliftment goals of the Colonies of Benevolence, Flevoland’s Noordoostpolder implemented structured socio-economic systems, selecting residents based on their farming expertise to establish a productive, self-sustaining agricultural economy. This approach inextricably links Dutch mastery of land manipulation to both physical and societal engineering – a legacy historically rooted in colonial power dynamics, transforming submerged areas into agricultural and urban land for economic and social order.

Social Dimensions of Land Art: Democratization

Simultaneously, while Flevoland echoes colonial themes of land reclamation and control, its land art also creates a space for democratization that contrasts with this history of dominion. Whereas past practices sought to tame and reshape landscapes for economic or political ends, contemporary land art invites a shared, accessible experience in spaces that once symbolized mastery over nature. This becomes especially evident in the artworks that emerged from the Land Art Lives research programme (2017). These works engaged with social processes, human experiences and political issues, reinforcing land art’s role as a cultural emblem of Flevoland. Home to the world’s largest collection of land art, Flevoland has woven its artworks into its identity.

Certain works in Flevoland stand out to me as they confront history directly by responding to past environmental tolls or cultural dislocation, aiming to reconsider human relationships with the land. Designed as an undulating landscape of hills that mimic frozen waves, Piet Slegers’ Aardzee serves as a memorial to the once-moving sea, evoking dislocation, surrender and awe in visitors who experience a sense of instability that contrasts with the surrounding flat farmlands. Aardzee is a tangible reference to Flevoland’s natural and geographical past, cultivating a collective respect for the land’s complex history. While such installations celebrate shared access, they do not erase the colonial complexities of land reclamation. Rather, they bring both perspectives together, allowing visitors to appreciate Flevoland’s identity through communal art while remaining mindful of the political legacies that shaped the land. Here, the past and present converge, inviting us to see land art both as a reminder of colonial ambition and as a democratic expression grounded in shared experience and reflection.

Contemporary land art in Flevoland thus has a unique opportunity to engage with colonial echoes and highlight the political complexities of land reclamation. Stuit further critiques Daniel Libeskind’s Polderland Garden of Love and Fire for its limited acknowledgment of the site’s historical resonance. Libeskind’s installation of five vertical aluminium walls connecting Almere, Flevoland’s major city, to seemingly random cultural centres like Salamanca, Berlin and Amsterdam frames the location as if it lacked history. Yet, as Stuit observes, the original polder landscape – and even Almere’s name, which references a medieval lake once in the Ijsselmeer – are deeply embedded in the area’s past. When land art recognizes and integrates these layers, it transforms once-submerged landscapes like Flevoland into sites of meaning rather than just material.

Time for Ecological Reparation

The Netherlands holds unique significance in the discourse of land art, shaped by its expertise in water management and spatial design – achievements that now provoke urgent ecological questions in the face of a changing planet. Emily Eliza Scott’s presentation concluded on an inspiring and thought-provoking note, asking, ‘How do we dismantle these colonial implications?’ Her answer was succinct yet profound: ecological reparation.

This call to action positions contemporary land artists at a pivotal moment, offering them the opportunity to shift the purpose of land art from asserting human dominance over nature to a medium that fosters both social engagement and ecological repair. By transforming landscapes into living artworks, artists can contribute to conservation, protection and innovation, using land art as a platform to explore sustainable practices and new technologies that strengthen the relationship between people and the environment.

Hanneke Stuit echoes a similar sentiment, emphasizing the need for a more sustainable approach to move beyond the violent legacy of Dutch colonialism. She highlights Deltawerk // by RAAAF and Atelier de Lyon as a compelling example of this shift – a reimagining of the monumental Deltagoot, a long concrete channel originally used to research the effects of tsunami waves on structures as part of a complex flood defence system. Sections of its massive concrete walls were dug out, cut, turned and tilted to form a monumental sculpture encircled by shallow, occasionally accessible water.

Over time, nature will gradually reclaim the structure, as mosses and ferns envelop its surfaces, cloaking it beneath a lush green skin. Deltawerk // not only commemorates Dutch infrastructural achievements but also prompts critical questions about the country’s pursuit of indestructibility in the face of looming climate crises and rising sea levels. By allowing nature to integrate with and eventually consume the artwork, Deltawerk // embodies an important shift: it acknowledges human impact while inviting nature to heal and take over, transforming what was once a symbol of control into one of symbiosis, as Stuit points out.

Essentially, the event leaves attendees with a compelling reminder of land art’s potential to go beyond aesthetics, offering a platform for decolonization, ecological justice and emotional resonance. Rather than serving as a tool of domination, land can become a space for regeneration and healing. Scott’s question about how ownership of the earth’s surface is distributed continues to resonate with me.

In the end, I’m convinced that land art’s future lies in fostering a deeper dialogue with nature – a conversation that challenges colonial narratives and prioritizes sustainability. This is where land art can evolve into a form of ecological activism: art that nurtures, restores and reimagines our relationship with the land through reverence, responsibility and shared stewardship.