Nature's war with Europe's coastline

Over the past three decades, Belgian photographer Carl de Keyzer has become well known for work that captures the moments just before the occurrence of a catastrophe. In 1989, he worked on a project in the former Soviet Union titled “Homo Sovieticus”, which explored the communist rule there just before the country’s disintegration. In 1992 he investigated new forms of religious fanaticism in a series titled “God Inc.” just a year before the massacre in Waco, in the United States.

His 2000 series, “Europa”, provided a view of 16th-century Europe just before new forms of nationalism reared their heads all over the continent. In his latest series, the photographer explores the possibility of an impending ecological disaster. The series, titled “Moments Before the Flood”, sounds a warning about the effects of global warming and environmental pollution on the coastline of Europe.

Since 2007, de Keyzer has been travelling around Europe taking pictures along the continent’s 65,000-kilometre coastline. His photographs are hauntingly beautiful. The images of ancient seaside fortifications and scenic coastal towns remind viewers of a time when major battles were fought along the shores of Europe and many great civilisations flourished around the harbours. But at the same time, the flooded piers and beaches, submerged dykes, sinking buildings, rusting harbour cranes and abandoned, crumbling forts in these pictures also show that this once-majestic space between land and water is eroding in front of our eyes and slowly sinking into oblivion.

The photographs document not the presence, but rather the absence of catastrophe. But they are infused with an atmosphere of tension and desolation and a sense of impending disaster. The powerful images transport viewers into a world of uncertainty, where the threat may not be visible, but is quite palpable. The photographer has done this deliberately because he wants to raise questions about how aware and prepared we are for the rise in water levels that could be caused by climate change.

“It is an accepted fact that the sea level will rise dramatically before the end of the century as a result of climate change, for which human beings are partly responsible. The threat is difficult to gauge, but its repercussions will be felt all along the coasts of Europe — from the rocky shores of Western Ireland and salt marshes and mudflats of Netherlands to the ports on the Baltic Sea, the volcanic coasts of Iceland and the beaches on the Aegean Sea. This is a fascinating subject for photographic research because it is essentially an attempt to depict uncertainty,” the photographer says.

Because de Keyzer is interested in examining both, the possibility of disaster and the preparations for dealing with it, the series includes many photographs depicting various forms of coastal protection in Europe, ranging from historic fortresses to modern-day dykes. “The 65,000-kilometre coastline of Europe is dotted with useless coastal defences from bygone days. Although a lot of money and effort was invested in these structures, most of them never served any purpose, either because the ‘enemy’ did not show up or when it did appear, the construction proved hopelessly outdated. For instance, when the Germanic people invaded the Roman Empire, the famous ‘limes’ proved to be useless and, similarly, the Atlantic Wall failed to stop the Normandy landings. Through my pictures I want to ask whether Europe is prepared for the possible rise in sea levels and whether the dyke reinforcements and sea defences we have today will prove to be as futile as the forts and defence lines of the past. I have focused on empty landscapes, desolate beaches, deserted hotels, wintry piers, bleak harbour cranes and sheer cliffs because rather than depicting disaster, I wanted to convey the ominous feeling of a disaster waiting to happen,” de Keyzer says.

“Ultimately, this project is about the latent tension between the inability to define how real the threat is and how efficient our defences against it are. It is about the idea of waiting and about portraying something that is indefinable and uncertain,” de Keyzer adds.

This project is thematically linked to the photographer’s earlier work through the emphasis on that “just before” moment. But it is also connected in terms of the artistic direction of his photography. “Each of my previous projects, books and exhibitions referred to a particular historic genre of visual culture. For example, ‘God Inc.’ carried visual references to the covers of ‘Life’ magazine from the 1960s, because this publication epitomised American middle-class conservatism and all its fears and aspirations. In this project I am looking for links to marine scenes from Dutch and British art, because I see in these paintings a bizarre tension between threat and domesticity. The canvases depict dramatic sea battles, but they are meant to adorn the walls of a home, thus highlighting our attraction for danger and the appeal of horror. This is why ‘Moments Before the Flood’ flirts with beauty in an ambivalent manner. The beauty draws viewers into the work and make them look beyond the aesthetics at the raw, hard subject,” de Keyzer says.

 “Moments Before the Flood” will run at The Empty Quarter gallery in DIFC until March 14.

Jyoti Kalsi is an arts enthusiast based in Dubai.