Statement of Intent
The Somme Project is about memory, landscape and the sense of absence which dominates the localities which were touched by the Battle of the Somme. The Project attempts to record the journeys made by those who took part in the Battle and the subsequent journeys made by others since. Attempting to understand what was experienced by those locked in five months of intense fighting is difficult, if not impossible. No one who fought in the Battle of the Somme, survived and then returned home, is alive today.
The Somme Project attempts to create a series of metaphors for these complex experiences through the contemporary use of photography, text and sound, alongside a sensory walking of the 'Somme' as it exists in the present-day landscape. All the documents we produce reflect our interest in the losses experienced by all sides engaged in the Battle.
Those who remain 'missing' in the landscape of 1916 underpin, even after ninety years, the Project's belief that memory and absence 'on the Somme' is fundamentally tied to place.