Foam 3h: Sem Langendijk Haven

Who owns the city?

In his research project Haven, Sem Langendijk attempts to capture the environment of his youth: a place that no longer exists. While growing up in a community of labourers, artists, squatters and outsiders in the western harbours of Amsterdam, Langendijk saw the city slowly but surely change its course. The city’s fringe was transformed into a smoothed-out quay with a new skyline, luxury apartments and large-scale architecture. Haven examines the environments of different port cities in various phases of transition, highlighting the transformation of disused docklands and the communities that reside there — showing not only a process of urban development but also of social exclusion.

Once fallen into disuse, port areas are the type of sanctuary for creatives who, with limited resources, shape their living environment in idiosyncratic ways. Uplifting these post-industrial environments into creative hubs, it’s just a matter of time before they have to make way for new construction projects in which there is no longer room for them. With an air of nostalgia, Sem Langendijk quietly observes the process of transformation through his lens. Piecing together the mundane as silent signifiers of gentrification, his criticism lies not in the natural cycle of how cities develop, but in the loss of character and history in the current trend of large-scale re-development projects. Having photographed in Amsterdam’s ADM, the Docklands of London and Red Hook in New York, at times it’s hard to distinguish one place from another in the homogenous and anonymous architecture of glass, metal and concrete that replaces the cultural imprint these places once had.