Harbor Crab
The Harbor Crab is a symbol of the Dutchman, its shell symbolizes their land. Experienced on land as well as in water, the shell acts as a safe home where he can retreat. Hiding his vulnerability, he knew how to defend and protect himself courageously at all times.
Annusch
height 55 cm, width 80 cm, depth 85 cm
When looking for a suitable design for a sculpture on the canal in the centre of Almere Haven, where I live, I wanted to create something that had to do with the history of the city of Almere and its province of Flevoland, as well as with the underlying attachment of the Dutch to the element of water.
Through my work as a tour guide at Land Art Flevoland, I had already studied the history of Flevoland in depth.
Flevoland is the twelfth and youngest province of the Netherlands, an area of more than 2,400 km2 that was artificially built on a surface where once there had only been water and sea.
I was enormously fascinated by the impressive way in which the Dutch created large tracts of land in a short period of time by building dikes, pumping water out of the former Zuiderzee, and in that way creating landscapes and entire cities for the growing population.
Water – friend and foe
As inhabitants of a low-lying country, the Dutch had to learn to deal with water at an early age. Now world-renowned in the field of water technology, they developed great expertise in protecting the country from water and in reclaiming land from the sea. They even used water for defence – so the Old and New Dutch Waterline formed the backbone of Dutch defence for a long time.
The creature that embodies the story
For a long time I was looking for a symbol of the Dutch with their whole history of finding ways to defend their country from floods, creating new land from the sea and defending the Netherlands from enemies with the help of water. And suddenly I knew. The hermit crab!
The hermit crab uses the shell on its back as a safe home to retreat to. This is where it hides its vulnerability, while bravely defending itself with its armoured pincers. The hermit crab therefore symbolizes the Dutch and the shell symbolizes their country. As for the hermit crab its shell, their land is an indispensable condition of existence for the Dutch.
In the process of land reclamation, the Dutch is the brave hermit which creates a new home out of what it can find in the desert created on former seabed. It moves into the shells abandoned by sea snails and creates a new home from them. There, where wild waves once raged, it is the living proof of the habitability of this newly created land.
Hermit crabs are known to be sea dwellers, but there are also land hermit crabs that live on land and in freshwater areas. Just as the hermit crab can live both on land and in water, the Dutch, as a resident of a land intertwined with water, is at home in both.
Thus, the idea for my sculpture Harbor Crab was born, as a recognizable symbol of the Dutch and their history intertwined with water. A brave little warrior who demonstrates that the Dutch, thanks to their great expertise, have always been able to defend, protect and evolve themselves both on land and water.
The crab – the symbol for The Netherlands in Astrology
By chance I learned that the crab is also in astrology the symbol for the Netherlands. Not everyone can relate to this, but of course it fits nicely with the story. On the Internet I read that the crab as a symbol for the Netherlands is also mentioned in the old textbooks of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries by William Lilly, Claude Dariot, William Ramesey, John Partridge and many others.
The crab is the sign of home and hearth. The key concepts of the crab are security, warmth, cosiness and homeliness. Hospitality also falls under the sign of Cancer – a quality for which the Dutch are famous.
The sign of Cancer also refers to the sea and fishing, as well as all professions related to water, such as sail-making, all professions of ship-supply, but also navigation, cartography of sea routes and more.