A collaboration between myself and Alan Gignoux, Monuments photobook documents the communities in North-Rhine Westphalia earmarked for demolition to make way for surface coal mining.

I made this photograph of a bathroom tile in the village of Old Manheim.  I noticed that the pattern almost looks like clouds and a blue sky.

Over several years, the families living there were relocated to New Manheim to make way for the expansion of the Hambach mine.

We both have different approaches to highlighting the erasure of collective memory and personal loss. Alan’s images document the destruction of houses, gardens, schools, shops, churches, businesses, roads, and the infrastructure of entire communities, whilst mine show us personal objects, doors, and stairs that recall individual lives.

Reflecting on my feelings as I walked around the condemned village, I wrote in the book “As I walked, I looked and thought about how every bench, curb, road, and tree would have had some significance to someone who once lived in the town. My mind kept leaping from being present walking around the town in Germany to imagining my hometown in England being destroyed. Thinking about all the memories of a place being ripped up, people being denied the chance to form new memories or even the possibility of returning to remember.”

This image is included in the project photobook Monuments, published in 2022 and available to buy from the Gignouxphotos book shop. The photobook is also available from The Photographers’ Gallery (London), Huis Marseille (Amsterdam), Open Eye Gallery (Liverpool), and NOUA (Norway) and is included in the Protest in Photobook collection.

This work is part of BRUISED LANDS for more information visit https://gignouxphotos.com/