LUKAS VAN BENTUM- Erosion

‘Erosion’ is a meditation on the fractures that shape us. It is a reflection on identity as both foundation and burden, on belonging as both anchor and constraint. At its core lies the tension between what we inherit and what we create, between the promises we are told and the realities we endure.

It is a project shaped by contradiction. ‘Erosion’ is historical, it’s social, it’s psychological. It is about America as an idea and as a lived reality. It is about the fault lines—visible and invisible—that run through communities, through relationships, through the very ways people see themselves and each other.

Built on the myths of individualism and freedom, ‘Erosion’ emerges from the remnants of past certainties now unraveling. It exists in the tension between movement and stagnation. If erosion is a process, then it is one that works on both land and people. It carves away at structures, at identities, at the bonds that once held things together. It leaves behind fragments—memories of a different time, gestures of resilience, echoes of something lost.

And yet, like the land itself, something remains. Whether it is endurance or merely inertia is an open question. ‘Erosion’ does not offer conclusions, only traces of what has been worn away—and what might still be left to hold on to.