The Salt Axis – Vreden-Ostendarp

Where there is nothing, there must be something!

Horror vacui (Latin for “fear of empty space”) is an age-old idea that nature will not tolerate emptiness and that it will even shrink away from empty spaces. Aristotle held the opinion that the cosmos, constantly striving for a “natural” balance, would see to it that every location was filled with matter. As is still common today, the inclination of some people to absolutely need to fill empty spaces is explained as a horror vacui – a truly Freudian neurosis (“fear of nothingness”).

Some artists (such as Jean Dubuffet, Adolf Wolfli, David Carson, or Robert Crumb) strive to draw or paint over empty spaces (on the paper or canvas), not limiting themselves to colors, but also never-ending details, figures, outlines, lines, and just about anything that their imaginations can produce. Likewise, empty spaces in the landscape – both the visible/above ground and the invisible/below ground – are filled with anything that the architect, landscape designer, or underground engineer can imagination.

Particularly susceptible in this context are all sorts of holes that have emerged as a “vacuum” in the course of exploiting natural resources (coal, ores, clay, marl, gravel, sand, or – in the present case – salt). These seem to exert an uncanny influence on humanity; once a source of raw materials has dried up, they usually fill it with everything they think should disappear forever: those who died from plague and war, domestic and industrial waste and, more recently, radioactive waste. One exception is the salt caverns in Gronau Epe, which – in contrast to the caverns in the Lüchow-Dannenberg area – are filled with substances (natural gas) that are useful to humanity. A notable exception.

It is not the hole that presents the danger these days, but what has been banished to it. Instead of a “fear of nothingness,” a “fear of the filling” is becoming increasingly widespread.

Dr. Timothy Sodmann, Landeskundliches Institut Westmünsterland, Vreden