If the thought of landmines evokes images of war-torn death-scapes (or the haunting boxes of a Windows 3.1 computer game) Brett Van Ort has some photographs you should see.
The LA- and London-based photographer has spent recent years chronicling the places in Bosnia still littered with the deadly detritus of war, over a decade after the awful conflict ended, and he’s returned with some beautiful photographs.
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“Some people told me not to walk into nature at all,” Van Ort says. The prospect of stumbling upon a landmine or forgotten munition has made rambles across the countryside a dangerous proposition. The BHMAC (the Mine Action Committee for Bosnia and Herzegovina) says just over 3.5% of the land area of the country is still contaminated by landmines, but others put the figure closer to 10%. Meanwhile, torrential downpours can unearth mines and even wash them into places that have already been cleared, a phenomenon that an imaginative environmentalist might see as putting a particularly cruel spin on the early 21st century onslaught of “extreme weather events.”
PMR-2A. Kill radius: 25 m. Approx. cost: 5 GBP. “This mine is tripwire initiated using a pull fuze.”
An estimated 1 million people have been killed by landmines over the last decade. This week, landmine haven Cambodia is hosting a conference where it hopes to draw more signatories to an international landmine treaty, the Ottawa Convention, which now has 158 supporter nations. Ten countries who are not signatories to the convention—including China and the US—are also at the conference. “In the countries emerging from conflicts, these weapons slow the repatriation of refugees… deprive communities of the productive and safe use of land and natural resources,” said Helen Clark, the international head of UNDP.
But from the angle of Van Ort’s lens, landmines across the Balkans also look like the de facto protectors of the landscape: the prospect of blown-off legs might be the most horrific deterrent to environmental spoilage. “I see the idea of hand-placed landmines protecting the natural setting and allowing the environment to regenerate itself as an ironic twist on our inability to conserve and see into the future,” Van Ort says.
In his pursuit of natural beauty, he’s produced images that evoke the sublime, especially in contrast to the blood and violence that their landscapes belie and the grim gadgets that sit beneath them. “The viewers of these photographs,” says Van Ort, “should ask themselves: which of these landscapes would they feel comfortable walking into?” Answer that question after gazing at the other subject of his lens: the artificial limbs that might be needed after a stroll in the wrong direction.
TMA-1. Kill radius: 30 m. Approx cost to produce: 8 GBP. “The mine is used against tanks, vehicles, personnel and in demolitions.”
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TMRP-6. Kill radius: 25 m. Approx. cost: 8 GBP. “TMRP-6 expells a convex steel plate to create a self-forming fragment of molten metal.”
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PROM. Kill radius: 50 m. Approx cost: 8 GBP. “No attempt should be made to neutralise this mine unless absolutely necessary.”
Van Ort’s website contains more photos.
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