This series of images was taken around the Garzweiler and Hambach open-cast lignite mines in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, in 2024. Entire settlements have been designated for removal to allow access to the coal deposits beneath them. Residents were resettled, houses were left behind, the villages stand empty – often for years – before excavation begins. In some cases, individuals remain, resisting displacement and contesting the erasure of their homes. The Hambach mine, one of the largest open-cast sites in Europe, extends for around 9 kilometres and reaches depths of up to 400 metres. Its excavators, among the largest machines ever built, measure approximately 220 metres in length and 100 metres in height, defining both the scale and the inevitability of this transformation. Lignite, the resource driving this process, is also one of the most carbon-intensive forms of energy.

The photographs document a place in suspension. A village stands intact, yet no longer inhabited; streets, houses and objects remain, but the lives that once gave them meaning have already receded. What is visible is not ruin in the traditional sense, but a state just before it – silent and waiting. The absence is palpable. Rooms stand open, facades hold their shape, and paths lead nowhere. There is no event to witness, no decisive moment of destruction. Instead, the images trace a slow process: the withdrawal of human presence and the quiet expansion of something else.

Nature moves in without urgency. Plants take root in cracks, surfaces begin to weather, and boundaries lose their clarity. This is not a sudden reclamation, but a gradual shift in ownership, one that unfolds almost unnoticed. The village becomes less a place of habitation and more a landscape again.

The excavators at its edge mark what is to come. Their presence defines the horizon, even when they are not visible. What remains here is temporary, already measured and scheduled for removal. This work does not attempt to resolve or interpret. It records a condition: a landscape between use and erasure, between memory and extraction.

What is shown is only what is here……..still here.