After the conquest and occupation of large parts of Western Europe by the German Wehrmacht in 1940, Hitler had a chain of bunkers and fortifications built as protection against enemy attacks. Dubbed the Atlantic Wall, these defensive structures stretched along the entire coastline from Norway to the Spanish border. More than 13 million cubic metres of concrete were used for the construction of some 17,000 heavily fortified bunkers flanked by nearly 100,000 lighter bunker systems. The scale of the structures built between 1942 and 1944 is comparable only to the Roman Limes and the Great Wall of China. Thousands of forced labourers and concentration camp prisoners lost their lives during the construction.

The photographer Annet van der Voort took pictures of the remnants of the Atlantic Wall still visible today along the coasts of Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and the British Channel Islands. She dedicated more than three years to this elaborate project. Today, most of the bunker structures are in a state of decay, but the photo project shows their architectural diversity, their sometimes bizarre integration into the coastal landscape and the peculiar fascination that these testimonies of brutality and destruction still exert.

The photographer and author Annet van der Voort was born in the Netherlands and studied visual communication at the University of Applied Sciences in Dortmund. She now lives in North Rhine-Westphalia. Her photo series have been exhibited in numerous national and international museums and galleries and are represented in many collections. Her calm and carefully observed colour photographs are attempts to approach the central questions surrounding the passage of time.

»My approach is always the same. It starts with searching and finding. Then the question of closeness and distance arises. The aura and mood depend on the light present. In this case, I am not focused on the mere documentation of the objects, but on how they are embedded in the landscape and in nature. Their strangeness, their fusion, their modifications and mutations. In fact, they have been altered not only by the loss of their function but also by time, humans and nature.« (Annet van der Voort)

Pictures: www.annetvandervoort.com