Remembrance Image Project

An action fought in May 1915;

a picture taken in May 2015.

The period 2014-18 marks the one hundredth anniversary of the First World War.  The fighting of course occurred in many parts of the world; this project will focus on the Western Front in France and Belgium, where there was extended and ferocious fighting and huge loss of life on all sides; and also on sites in the UK.

Our aim is to produce something which is a lasting tribute to all those who lost their lives, or who were scarred physically or mentally by this terrible conflict.

Our first objective is to produce a library of creative photographs which document key sites associated with the war, and capture some of the spirit and emotion of those places. The aim where possible is to take these photographs at a point close in time to the one hundredth anniversary of action in that location.  These images will be published over the period between now and 2018, and will hopefully form a lasting archive for future generations.

Alongside that, we aim to develop presentations, workshops, exhibitions  and resource packs drawing on these images, which can be used to help students, community groups and others to engage with and discuss the history of the conflict, and the role of remembrance.  It is hoped that people will not only be able to respond to and critique images published here, but will also be encouraged to take their own images either on the western front itself, or at war memorials in their own locality.

To support this, there is a Twitter feed and Facebook page where people can share their own images, and respond to those of others.  This means that alongside the core archive of images generated by the project, there will hopefully be a huge range of images taken by members of the public and shared widely.