14/7 Capel-le-Ferne – stopped at Battle of Britain Memorial overlooking the channel. The site is landscaped to emphasise the skies and sea where much of the battle of Britain took place. The memorials to those who died in World War II at both Dover and Eperleques are stirring with their fresh flowers and long lists of names.
The horizon vanishes and the sea merges lazily with the sky yet the whole place is alive with buzz of lawn mowers and the drone of aircaft over head. Life goes on.
The landscape and history of North East France and Kent visually echo each other – both marked by flat plains, Napoleonic canals, and fortresses and more recently by pillboxes, gun emplacements, defensive structures and blockhauses. These mementos to a collective history of war sit benignly amidst the buddleia and ivy, often hidden but still able to transmit a sense of shock and awe.
I have been filming and photographing some of these elements with an idea of somehow highlighting and amalgamating these forms and scars to explore how we exist within Europe.
