Comme On Peut (2012-2017)
‘Comme On Peut’, co-produced with photographer Sylvain Demange, explores the memory of a First World War battle fought in 1915 and its continuing resonance in a French village more than a century later.
In just a few months, nearly 50,000 French and German soldiers were killed while fighting for control of a small hill overlooking a heavily fortified German position. The battle carries strong symbolic weight: writers such as Ernst Jünger and Maurice Genevoix experienced and later described it, while others, including Alain-Fournier and Louis Pergaud, were killed or went missing.
Developed over five years of regular fieldwork in the village of Les Éparges—three consecutive days every quarter—this project immersed itself in the rhythms of local life and remembrance. The work combines interviews, archaeological fieldwork, and photography to trace the imprints of this violence on both the land and the people who safeguard its memory. It captures scarred landscapes, fragments of the battlefield, and testimonies from those dedicated to keeping alive the stories of the men who fought and died there. This work reflects on how landscapes carry memory, how communities embody remembrance, and how art can connect past and present.
Selected for France’s official First World War centenary commemorations, ‘Comme On Peut’ was exhibited at the Verdun Memorial in 2017 and accompanied by a photography book that extended the exhibition into a permanent record.
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