The German Nobel Prize Laureate, Heinrich Böll, had a lifelong interest in environmental conservation, as evidenced in his play 'Ein Schluck Erde' (German: A Mouthful of Earth) written in 1962. The play, set in the future, portrays a dystopian society surviving above a flooded earth by scavenging the oceans and processing vestiges of remaining soil. Poignantly, Böll’s subject matter highly resonates with the emerging environmental issues as already evidenced in the first quarter of the 21st century.

This emerging climate crisis is strongly echoed in my work because my methodology relies on the use of seawater and soil to evoke place-specific coastal and environmental vulnerability and highlights the urgent need to develop alternatives to reduce our global carbon footprint.

'We Are Making A New World' incorporates ‘soil’ and 'seawater' as part of my sustainable photographic printing practice, simultaneously evoking the gradual threat that coastal erosions pose, particularly, for coastal communities.

Since 2017, Scholz has focused his artmaking on environments which have been affected by human activity, encompassing landscapes affected by, for example, war, pollution, and the climate crisis. Simultaneously, he is exploring and experimenting with alternative and sustainable practices, to highlight the need to critically reflect on our global carbon footprint.