Dark Waters
Stevns Klint
Denmark, 2022

On the edge of Stevns Klint, some thirty metres above sea level, the old church of Højerup stands in a place where land and sea have been contending with one another for centuries. Built around 1250 and consecrated in 1357, the church was brought ever closer to the precipice by the ongoing erosion of the cliff.

As early as 1910 it was taken out of use, because the ground beneath it was slowly being eaten away. On 16 March 1928, early in the morning, the chancel collapsed and disappeared into the sea. The rest of the church remained standing and was later reinforced. On the site of the former altar there is now a balcony overlooking the Baltic Sea. Through the open door to that balcony, wind, weather and salty air enter the building, as if the church were no longer separated from the landscape but had become part of it.