Both photographers are passionate about the issue, yet despite similar approaches, aims and working methods, their final pieces are positioned for different markets.
Sophie Gerrard has focused on creating a piece for the editorial market, showing the changing landscape alongside portraits of residents who offer their views of the situation. She has also interviewed specialists in the field of conservation.
Alicia Bruce has also been collaborating with the residents of Menie, indeed this is very much a long term project for her, and one that looks to the wider art world for inspiration. By restaging compositions from celebrated paintings (the majority of them in the permanent collection of the local Aberdeen Art Gallery), her work moves beyond the surface struggle and the issues around the changing topography. Alica also photographed posts in the landscape during one day (above), which she says, "depict a scene of natural beauty with its lights going out."
Here's a selection of pictures from both projects with introductions by Sophie and Alicia.
Sophie Gerrard - The Dunes
The vast and majestic giant shifting dunes at Menie, on the Aberdeenshire coast were once among the few remaining examples of true wilderness in the UK.
The dunes were protected as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), the highest level of environmental protection in the UK. Despite this, Trump's development was deemed to be in the national economic interest and planning permission was granted by the Scottish government following a public enquiry in 2008.
Whilst some argue that it's only the destruction of a sand dune, and after all the development will bring investment and 1400 jobs to the local area, others speculate on just how much a coastline saturated with golf courses and a city with one of the lowest unemployment rates in the UK needs yet another links course.
Alongside the environmental impact, many of the local residents have also objected strongly to the development.
Alicia Bruce - Menie: a portrait of a North East community in conflict
I grew up in Aberdeen in the North-East of Scotland and spent my childhood summers playing on the beach. I began this project in summer 2010 as construction of the Trump International Golf Links Scotland began, with a focus on the people of Menie and the place, not the Trump development.
I spent several months getting to know the residents before making the photographs as I wanted to present a humane story of people and place. I chose to reference paintings in the portraits, as traditionally you would go into a gallery to see the great and the good on the wall and I want to give that same attention to the residents of Menie.
It's collaboration and an exchange. I view myself as the operator, bringing concept and technical expertise. I want these images to contain something both past and present. Each picture is accompanied by a statement by the resident.
The residents chose not to be complacent but to stand up for our heritage and some became reluctant celebrities who had been thrust into the media spotlight and I'd often turn up and find film crews and media on the residents' doorsteps. It would be naive for me to think I was the first one to want to tell this story.
In February 2011 the portraits of Mike, Sheila and Molly Forbes were acquired by the National Galleries of Scotland securing their place more firmly in our national and cultural imagination.