Doghouse, Old Manheim, North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany, 2019, Chloe Juno

Description

A collaboration between Alan Gignoux and Chloe Juno, Monuments documents the communities in North-Rhine Westphalia earmarked for demolition to make way for surface coal mining.

Chloe Juno took this photograph of an abandoned doghouse in the village of Old Manheim.  Over the course of several years, the families living there were relocated to New Manheim to make way for the expansion of the Hambach mine.

The two photographers adopt different approaches to highlighting the erasure of collective memory and personal loss. Gignoux’s images document the destruction of houses, gardens, schools, shops, churches, businesses, roads, the infrastructure of entire communities, while Juno’s photographs show us personal objects that recall individual lives.

Reflecting on her feelings as she walked around the condemned village, Juno writes: “As I walked, I looked and thought about how every bench, curb, road, and tree would have had some significance to someone who once lived in the town. My mind kept leaping from being present walking around the town in Germany to imagining my hometown in England being destroyed. Thinking about all the memories of a place being ripped up, people being denied the chance to form new memories or even the possibility of returning to remember.”

This image is included in the project photobook Monuments, published in 2022 and available to buy from the Gignouxphotos book shop. The photobook is also available from The Photographers’ Gallery (London), Huis Marseille (Amsterdam), Open Eye Gallery (Liverpool), and NOUA (Norway) and is included in the Protest in Photobook collection.

Available size A3 printed on fine art quality Canson Arches 88 paper, edition of 10.