Rhineland Model

Monument of Sugar

Monument of Sugar
Lonnie van Brummelen / Siebren de Haan

Monument of Sugar is a research into Europe’s subsidized sugar exports. To turn the flow of sugar around, the artists produced a sugar sculpture in Nigeria and shipped it to Europe. A written essay and documentary sequences chart their investigations into the sugar trade and their experiences when producing and transporting the monument.

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Rhineland Model

Long ago, the Rhineland wilderness was divided up and distributed to groups of freeholders in exchange for a small annual fee. Before the marshland could be used, a good drainage system had to be built. A branch of the river was turned into a canal and a system of parallel ditches was dug, running perpendicular to the reclamation work. The parcels of land thus created had a fixed width of thirty rods and a length of three hundred and sixty rods, or six voorlings. A voorling was the distance that could be plowed without having to turn the plough around. A rod contained twelve Rhineland feet. By decree of the King of Holland, the Rhineland foot was fixed at 0.3139465 of a meter.

Rhineland Model
Artist/Author: Lonnie van Brummelen / Siebren de Haan

Long ago, the Rhineland wilderness was divided up and distributed to groups of freeholders in exchange for a small annual fee. Before the marshland could be used, a good drainage system had to be built. A branch of the river was turned into a canal and a system of parallel ditches was dug, running perpendicular to the reclamation work. The parcels of land thus created had a fixed width of thirty rods and a length of three hundred and sixty rods, or six voorlings. A voorling was the distance that could be plowed without having to turn the plough around. A rod contained twelve Rhineland feet. By decree of the King of Holland, the Rhineland foot was fixed at 0.3139465 of a meter.

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