Recovering The Past: A Photographic Documentary Exploring Post-Conflict Reconciliation

I am a London-based photographer whose great grandfather was shot at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. With this family history and the then fast-approaching centenary commemorations of the First World War in mind, in 2011 I embarked on developing a complex but unique photographic project to be entitled Recovering The Past. Since its completion, Recovering The Past has been exhibited both at the United Nations in Geneva and currently as a component of the centenary commemorations to the Battle of Passchendaele at the In Flanders Fields Museum, in Ypres, Belgium, as part of the Total War display. The project’s 25 images are a montage of my own photographs of the operations of the DOVO-SEDEE bomb disposal team, and archival images of men of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). The men of the AIF made significant contributions to the fighting in many localized battles that collectively made up the Third Battle of Ypres. Their courageous efforts are acknowledged through the images of this project