Wounded Land | 2018 -

A camera provides with you the perfect alibi to go somewhere, to investigate things, to dive in to something. As such it was during a trip to the Elzas I visited Hartmannswillerkopf, a First World War monument. The vastness and sheer size of this place, that rises before you upon entering, left such a huge impression on me I wanted to know more about this epoch in history.

Eventually I started strolling these, still utterly visibly wounded, areas around Verdun and the Somme with my camera. These damaged landscapes, these silent witnesses, whisper the most horrendous stories. The whispering creeps under your skin, especially in the woods where thousands of people have gotten injured, lost their lives and are often still buried in that very soil. With my camera as a voice I hope the whispering doesn't fade away.

Not all wounds heal. Not even in time. They simply should not be made.

The images shown below are handmade Van Dyke Brown prints on Ilford Tesuki Washi paper. I chose this process because the pigment Van Dyke Brown used to be made of peat and soil. The color that, to me, is a symbol of the soil that houses so many stories. The time and effort it takes to make these prints feel like an homage to the people that lost their lives during this ‘great’ war.