This fingernail house symbolises the long and solitary journey that one resident Mr. Stephen Putz, of Immerath, Düsseldorf travelled to take his case to Germany’s Constitutional Court with the support of BUND (Friends of the Earth). He lost his case before a panel of 8 judges.
Lorraine Cross, Garzweiler Panels: Last One Standing 2014
This fingernail house symbolises the long and solitary journey that one resident Mr. Stephen Putz, of Immerath, Düsseldorf
travelled to take his case to Germany’s Constitutional Court with the support of BUND (Friends of the Earth).
He lost his case before a panel of 8 judges.
Click to enlarge image
Artwork
Lignite results from compressed vegetation over millions of years. This brown coal has a low heat content, high emissions of CO2, is uneconomical to store or transport over long distances and only 25% is usable with the remaining 75% redeposited on site forming mountains the size of the Benbulben formation in Sligo. Despite this, Germany has brought lignite mining to expansive industrial levels. In the process, dozens of villages are literally transplanted and an estimated 40,000 people involuntarily displaced in order to excavate the coal beneath their homes. This dystopian reality receives scant media reportage.
Artist
Winning the NUI Art and Design Prize in 2014 meant that Lorraine could undertake a research trip to document lignite coal mining at Garzweiler in the Düsseldorf/Cologne region. It also funded her Master’s Degree in 2015. Since this trip, Lorraine has participated in her Master’s Degree show, plus further solo shows in Ireland and one in Italy. She has contributed to group shows in Italy, New York, Glasgow and Vienna. Her work to date is largely based on Garzweiler.
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Last One Standing
Garzweiler Fodder
The overriding sense of machinery/excavators/Baggers that can legally erase the place you grew up in. The loss of being and longing for some place that no longer exists, that you no longer belong to.
Clothes and Shoes
An allusion to the Green movement and Green living as part of urban infrastructure as you recycle the remnants of your lives on the road out of town - while the ground beneath your home is erased taking everything in its path.
Served Up !
Until 1937 Germany’s “General Mining Act” stated that property owners could never be forced to surrender “property containing residential, commercial or factory buildings”. This law was dropped under the Nazi regime based on the “common good” because energy was needed to support Germany during the war.
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