He looks at this country in the heart of Western Europe as an outsider. Flatlands is a photographic landscape view of the country in which the genre of landscape painting was decisively developed in the 17th century. Today, the country is the most densely populated in Europe and is criss-crossed by a complex network of roads, canals and railways. Seemingly endless industrial areas along the transport routes characterise the landscape as a sign of economic prosperity. Every square metre of land is used, every cubic metre of water is integrated into a system of dikes, locks and canals. The land, which was once considered marshland difficult to live in, is now symbolic of the radical transformation of the environment by man. Spohler and his pictures show how a cultural landscape with its complex historical, economic and social references can be read and represented.
