SEM
LANGENDIJK
from Netherlands. Lives and works in Amsterdam, London and New York.
Agency, ADM
AGENCY is questioning the role of the community within the powerplays of city development. Does a community have the right to claim the land, after cultivating it for over 20 years? Is ownership strictly defined through legislation? Langendijk has photographed on the ADM over the last two years of its existence as a ‘free haven’ near the city of Amsterdam. He portrays both the community as their alteration of the land. In this project the arguable question of ‘the right to the city’ is raised, driving from the personal background of the photographer, who has experienced several struggles between communities and other powerhouses that determine urban planning.
The ADM community has been evacuated last December, after various legal battles with the city council. The ADM had become an international acclaimed experimental hub for working and living conditions that defied the conditioned status quo of society. By creating their own system of allowing people to come-and-go, and settles to be acknowledged by the community, they strived for a different life and according to a different set of rules.
