Past Exhibition
Fields of Battle, Terres de Paix 14-18.
Mike St Maur Sheil
Until 29 September 2014
Fields of Battle-Lands of Peace 14-18 is the result of a collaboration with the late Prof Richard Holmes and documents the battlefields of the First World War as they are today.
Sheil worked on the project for eight years, and estimates that over that time he spent 450 days photographing World War I battlefields from places as diverse as eastern Africa, Poland, Israel and Turkey. "The only major theatre of the war I didn't cover was Iraq," Sheil said. He's now a qualified battlefield guide, leading tours of sites along the Western Front from Belgium to Switzerland.
Sheil's aim was to show how even now, a century after the start of the war, the scarred landscapes in Flanders, on the Somme and Marne rivers, in the Vosges mountains and elsewhere can still reveal to the careful observer the stories of the millions of men who fought and died.
"There are still traces," Sheil said. "I don't think you'll ever eradicate them."