The ‘National Gift to the Sea’ Opponents have called it an environmental hazard, the wilful destruction of food, and even a blasphemy; the project’s initiators say it is a sacrificial image, a ‘monument of gratitude’. .

In the middle of the Afsluitdijk, the dyke that was built to enclose the former Zuyder Zee, stands a steel giant, over 30 meters high. A complete bakery has been built, producing 20.000 fresh loaves of bread. Baked with grain from polders raised from the sea and water from the former Zuyder Zee. These loaves, plastered into the steel skeleton, together form a giant sacrificial image. The ‘National Gift to the Sea’ will eventually disappear beneath the waves of the North Sea.