12. Hard Lands (2025)  – Maud Haya-Baviera

2025. Video, 4 min 32 sec 

Hard Lands was filmed on the site of a former concentration
camp and features haunting images of a desolate French
countryside in winter. It is here that the artist’s grandfather
was interned during the Second World War.

The traces of the camp are just visible in the overgrown structures
and abandoned houses – their windows either boarded up or existing
as gaping openings to a dark emptiness within. The accompanying
soundtrack consists of a sweeping and relentless melody, created
by a synthetic chorus. It highlights and contrasts the lifeless
visuals, drawing out the emotions and experiences buried deep in
the foundations of the landscape.

On her pilgrimage the artist encountered others who had travelled
to the site, seeking to see what is no longer there. Hard Lands is the final and most personal of the works presented by Haya-Baviera in this exhibition. It was also the first work the artist made during her residency, a personal overture of sorts, setting the tone for a body of work that rings and wrings with the urgency
of mediating Holocaust history at a time when racist and anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise across Europe.