The southern part of the recreation park Rottemeren consists of a hilly area which is called the 'Hoge Bergse Bos'. In this originally flat area one will find a few substantial manmade hills built on foundations of refuse and construction waste. These hills are covered with wild vegetation, for the area is hardly looked after at all. The third hill, the so-called 'Tussenbult', ('tussen' is the Dutch word for in between) is almost completed.

The theme of the recreation park is based on this hilly landscape as there are facilities for mountaineering, skiing and mountain-biking. My design would fit in perfectly as I was inspired by considering what the shortest way would be if one had to travel through a mountainous landscape. My sculpture would namely consist of a railway tunnel on top of the hill which is in between the other ones and thus marking the shortest way between the climbing and the skiing centre.

But because this landscape is not common for the Netherlands and clearly recognisable as a dumping ground, I chose to take these elements as the subject of the work of art. I would place the tunnel casually on top of the hill and suggest that it was left there because it had lost its function.

This work of art will remind the visitor of the remains of civil engineering which now lie buried in pieces under this new nature-like landscape. By turning this tunnel upside down it creates the character of being a folly or is like a pavilion in a city park. The design is furthermore based on a tunnel out of the world of model making. This railway tunnel bears a resemblance to a simplified and jagged mountain with a hole in the middle. A mountain that would ask for a railway to go around it instead of right through it.


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