The Südraum Leipzig, where lignite has been mined for over 100 years, covers an area of 820 square kilometers south of the town of Leipzig.

Once characterized by agriculture and extensive river floodplains, the region in the days of the GDR became part of the country's industrial center and one of the most polluted places in the world. In a state that considered environmental pollution not to be possible in it's socialist system, non-public measurements in the mid-80s proved pollution levels in metropolitan areas such as Leipzig or Chemnitz to be more than twice as high as in Düsseldorf, Chicago or Tokyo. Due to the lack of other raw materials, the GDR was highly dependent on locally available lignite, which was subsequently mined and processed regardless of the consequences for the environment and residents. In the village of Mölbis, just a few kilometers from the Espenhain power plant, residents at the time reported dense dust in the air that at times no longer allowed visibility as far as the neighboring property. Even before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the outdated factories became a symbol of the disintegration of the socialist state and the environmental movement a catalyst for political change.

With the German reunification, the closedown of most GDR enterprises and the migration of large parts of the population, another drastic change began. In 1993, SPIEGEL journalist Wilhelm Bittorf described the rusting and abandoned industrial quarters of the former GDR as a "desolation zone" on approach to Leipzig-Airport.

Since then, most of the facilities have been dismantled. Areas have been renaturalized and open-cast mining pits flooded. With lake Cospuden and other flooded opencast mines a much-visited recreational area has been created outside the doors of Leipzig.

However, many problems and subsequent damage only become visible at second glance and many years later. Poorer soil quality reduces crop yields, and swampiness caused by the resurgence of groundwater makes some areas barely usable economically. Insufficiently compacted soils lead to structural problems in construction projects, and ecosystems will still need many centuries to fully recover. In addition, there are conflicts around the still active opencast lignite mines "Vereinigtes Schleenhain" and "Profen."

Lignite production in eastern Germany is planned to cease in 2038, but the current energy crisis is also changing the view of domestic energy sources. In 2020 Germany still had the second-largest output of lignite globally, only beaten by China. The work Desolationszone tries to photographically draw a long-term balance of lignite-mining and takes a look at a contemporary anthropogenic landscape.