Industrielandschaft: Rüdersdorf

Two journeys along the River Elbe and a third planned in May this year, has brought me into close to industrial buildings that hover on the edge of landscape. Inspiration for picture-making.

These are places where to quote the poet Paul Farley

‘.. as difficult to pin down and define as poetry, but like poetry you’d know it when you saw it. … Decay and stasis, but … also dynamic and mysterious’.

These places are all around.

Statis Rudersdorf      Acrylic on Paper      40 cm x 60 cm

I discovered a photograph of the ruins of the VEB Chemiewerk Coswig facility in Rüdersdorf, not far from Berlin.

This remarkable place was was built in 1899 as a cement factory, but by World War Two it was producing chemicals for the Nazi war effort. After the war, the plant was stripped by the Soviets and used as a transit camp for prisoners destined for the USSR.

In 1950, it was pressed back into operation to manufacture phosphates, and the production of agricultural chemicals and compounds. These works were close to huge agricultural collectives of the DDR, fields through which I cycled in 2016 and 2017.

After permanently closing in 1999, the deserted industrial site became a favourite haunt of filmmakers.

The design of these places is a pure flight of fantasy.