The third part of the project was a series of 12 posters with QR codes, which were shown in the park surrounding the Château Coquelle, and on a water tower in the centre of Dunkirk. The exhibitions were put up with the help of the participants.

A pebble, a horse shoe, a little angel found in the trenches during WW1, a family wedding : each image or object has its own story. The stories were set to music and soundscapes composed by Eric Sterenfeld. By scanning the QR code, the audience could hear this story as they contemplated the image. 12 echo chambers.

Participants : Christine, Martine, Sylvie, Viviane, Stan, Lilou, Camille L., Pascal, Fabienne, Clementine, Hugues et Camille L.B.

Music : Eric Sterenfeld / Photos : Kate France

Thanks to the team of the Château Coquelle.

The second episode of the project took place in August 2022, as part of the summer university organised by the association Les Littoraeles at the LAAC (Lieu D’Art et d’Action Contemporain) Dunkirk. The theme for the session was « memories and traces ».

In the morning, there were conferences on amateur archives including a showing of a film of a huge tanker being launched from Dunkirk in the 1950s.

In the afternoons 27 people, each of whom had bought their photo or object, participated in a series of workshops culminating in a recital of texts set to electroacoustic music.

Exhibition and reading in Dunkirk Central Library

We worked with eighty 14 and 15 year old students and three staff members of Guilleminot secondary school, from February to June 2022.

Each student bought in a photograph or an object that was important to them , and showed it to their classmates. Talking about personal issues at school was a very new experience, and there were some emotional moments and surprises.

The project continued with writing workshops, recording and photography over the next few months, in collaboration with the teachers and with three students from Dunkirk Art School.

The exhibition at Dunkirk’s central library, the BiB, showed the texts, photographs, and some of the objects themselves in a display case. Two videos weaved together images from the recorded texts and sound. For the opening, several students read out their texts accompanied by live music .