With a highly influential line of land artists creating large-scale earthworks, especially in the North American deserts, one asks: “Where did land art go?” Did works like The Lightning Field (1977) by Walter De Maria, Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels (1973–76), and Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (1970) conclude with Michael Heizer’s City—a project started in 1970 and opened in 2022?

Yes, there are numerous garden festivals (see Rhys Williams’ article on Lausanne Jardins) and ephemeral landscape art in the Andy Goldsworthy style, but where are the artworks that expose landscape processes rather than placing objects on-site? With terrain modelling, landscape architecture is an earthwork practice, sometimes ingeniously incorporated into projects like Buitenschot Park by H+N+S, Snøhetta’s MAX IV Laboratory Landscape, and the River Aire project by Atelier Descombes Rampini. Perhaps Watching the Glacier Disappear is the festival that most directly, though poetically resigned, points to the ongoing loss of landscapes.

The idea of creating megastructure earthworks sets Flevoland, a Dutch land art festival, apart from garden-focused festivals. Their open-air collection includes works by Richard Serra, Daniel Libeskind, and Anthony Gormley, among others.

In this article, we speak with Dingeman Deijs, who created a small-scale earthwork advocated for by Flevoland. The Sleeping Dike (2022) raises questions about “ruinous landscapes”—what to do with landscape features that have lost their function. The cut could reference Michael Heizer’s Double Negative (1969), though the context is different—here, the cut slices through a manmade land that is obsolete.

In the project, you focus on the “awakening” of a dike that lost its function in the landscape. Can you describe the process of this loss or the transformation of function? Is now, when the dike lost its function, a purely aesthetic form your inspiration?

The Knardijk has undergone a complete transformation over a period of 62 years. From a surrounding dike that held back the water, to a dike in the middle of the polder serving as a regional water barrier, and now to a dike that has almost entirely lost its primary function: the Sleeping Dike. The goal is to make the identity of the Sleeping Dike visible and tangible.

“Dig a 100-meter-long trench in a dike. Normally unthinkable, but in 2022, an exception was made for the Knardijk in Flevoland. Dingeman Deijs excavated a jagged lightning-shaped trench one meter deep in the dike, which for decades has been classified as ‘sleeping’.”

You make a zig-zag cut in the dike, which allows submerging oneself in the mass of the embankment. What do the sharp turns suggest? 

Visitors walking through the dike experience it and the older landscape from an unusual perspective. As they stand, lie and sit, the views of the surrounding landscape constantly change, but the soil’s mass is always palpable.

This spatial intervention was a temporary land/art project.

You also brought sound to the experience …

The story of the dike can be heard in a special sound composition into six chapters corresponding to six places where the trench changes direction. The music created by composer Jolle Roelofs is based on the sounds that were heard during these phases in the history of the dike.

Why is it important for you to bring attention to this obsolete landscape feature? Is there a wider problem or occurrence in this process? How do you see the landscape changing?

This project invites the public to think about the landscape. What is the value of this dike? And what future does it have? The spatial dimension that the trench brings to the experience of the dike helps the visitor to answer these questions.