Siege Mentality

It is the third time working together with my friends in Born From Pain on one of their album artworks. This time it felt like the most personal one when exchanging ideas and concepts with singer Rob beforehand. Born From Pain come from the south of the Netherlands. Heerlen, Limburg to be precise. A region similar to the Ruhrgebiet in Germany in terms of its background of the mining industry back in the days. Once one of the wealthier regions in the Netherlands it fell victim to economic changes like seen in the Ruhr area as well.

Rob invited me to a little field trip to go around town, visiting sites that still show signs of this heavy industrialized past as well as memorial grounds that remember the hardship and cost of what it meant working underground. After the mines closed one by one during the late 70's and 80's, Heerlen spiraled down into a drug epidemic giving rise to street violence and related crimes.

After mapping out various conceptual routes, I decided to go with a collage-based layout. This format offers the flexibility to present multiple viewpoints simultaneously, combine stylistic elements and show different layers of emotions and meaning in one go.

Since Siege Mentality is a modern sounding hardcore record I wanted to have an element that felt more high-res than lo-fi. The barbed wire that sits on top of the collage is made in 3D which gave me different lightning and material options to play with. It turned out subtle enough to stand out and at the same time assimilates with the grainy black and white aesthetics of the images.

Siege Mentality isn't so much about documenting the economic decline and be political about it. It is more of a keen observation on the collective resilience born from the minds of the people living there.

For further info check the official Born From Pain website. Tot ziens!