2 – Lützerath bleibt!

 
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„Dass wir Lützerath als Ort nicht erhalten konnten, schmerzt. Dieser Kampf war jedoch nie isoliert, sondern immer Teil eines globalen Kampfes um Gerechtigkeit.”
– Mara Sauer, Lützerath lebt. 

Lützerath was a little village in the west of Germany that has vanished in January 2023.

There are 600 Mio. tons of lignite underneath the village so industry and government decided to expropriate and move the villagers and extend the open pit mine Garzweiler, which at that point was already a gigantic hole in the surrounding surface. Meanwhile with no villager left, around 200 climate activists took action and settled in the abandoned buildings or in self-made tree houses to stop the destruction of Lützerath and the exploitation of the extremely polluting lignite.

A German court ordered the eviction of Lützerath and the activists prepared over months for violent clashes with the police. They wanted to remain peaceful but built barricades out of stones, wood, chairs and other things they found in the abandoned houses. 

Dirk Mevis picked up a camera at age 12 and has been in love with the medium ever since. During a work-related stay in the United States from 2008, his passion for street photography flared up. Dirk is a self-taught photographer and has never had a formal education in photography.

Olivier Thull studied German and American literature in Freiburg (D) and San Francisco (USA) and currently lives and works in Luxembourg. Passionate about photography since the age of 15 he uses a camera as a medium to view modern society and as an excuse to study human nature.
 
Edited by Patrick Hoffmann
Design by Georges Boez