The Bear Project
This is a photo reportage that Geertje and I did. We photographed it in Holland at the beautiful Camping de Berekuil which is located in Utrecht.
This photo series is about the people who live in Camping de Berekuil and their struggle to stay there in their homes. They were told to leave their homes because the owner decided to sell the site to a large real estate company.
The residents received letters ordering them to evacuate their house quickly, and later on there were even harsher actions, such as surveillance by agents who appeared twice a week, peered through the residents’ windows and recorded their movements and the owner ordering the neglect of the public services and facilities, all of which were intended to force the residents to give up and to move out of their homes.
At that time, which was in the fall and winter of 2008, I (Michael Mann, a photographer who had come to Holland from Israel) and my partner (Geertje Peterse, who was a psychology student), were living in the Camping de Berekuil and we decided to initiate a creative action to support the residents in their struggle against these inhumane actions, and we did this photo reportage.
The bear masks were used in order to conceal the residents’ faces, because obviously they were afraid to reveal themselves, and also because of the Camping’s name – de Berekuil – which means the bear’s cave or home. We wanted to create a nice way, almost like a fairytale, of saying “These are nice normal people living their nice normal lives here”, and not some kind of criminals that need to be ousted.
Later on, this photo reportage was published on April 5, 2008 in a large-circulation Dutch magazine, de Volkskrant Magazine (The People’s Magazine) issue no. 410.
As of today, November 24, 2011, the Camping de Berekuil is no longer in the hands of that real estate company, and most of the residents are still living in their houses. But recently there have been rumors of a new threat from a different real estate company that wants to take over the site.
Photography by Michael Mann/Production by Geertje Peterse
For more images from this project go here: http://www.behance.net/gallery/Bear-project/2561773
