New exhibition about historic battleground explores the ecological legacy of war
The exhibition launched on Friday 4 April and will be on display until mid-May, as part of a significant international research project.
A new exhibition, Ecologies of Violence, has opened at The Vimy Visitor Education Centre in Givenchy-en-Gohelle, Pas-de-Calais, France. Running through April and the first half of May 2025, the exhibition forms part of Dr Esther Breithoff’s UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Future Leaders Fellowship project, Ecologies of Violence: Heritage and Conflict in More-than-Human Worlds.
The three-year interdisciplinary project explores the enduring ecological and social impacts of armed conflict through a ‘more-than-human’ lens. By combining archaeological, historical and ethnographic approaches, the research examines how war and state violence leave lasting scars on people, landscapes and ecosystems.
Ecologies of Violence focuses on conflict legacies in Paraguay, Laos, and France, with the exhibition at Vimy highlighting the French case study. This work centres on the so-called ‘red zone’ at Vimy Ridge – an area devastated by First World War combat and long deemed too contaminated for human habitation. Today, this cordoned-off forested site stands as a poignant example of what the project terms ‘involuntary heritage’ - places where unwanted and often toxic remnants silently persist, shaping the futures of both humans and non-humans.
Developed in collaboration with Veterans Affairs Canada and The Durand Group, and supported by postdoctoral researcher Dr Matthew Leonard, the exhibition invites visitors to consider the entangled legacies of war and nature. Through 3D laser scans, archival materials and an atmospheric film-poem Zone Rouge / Red Zone: Back Forest Reflections by artist Antony Lyons, the exhibition creates a reflective space where destruction and regeneration co-exist.
Dr Breithoff commented:
“Ecologies of Violence challenges traditional views of heritage as something inherently positive and fragile by highlighting the enduring, often harmful impacts of war on both human and non-human environments. Through interdisciplinary research and artistic expression, it explores how violent landscapes—like the Vimy Ridge red zone forest—become, what I call, involuntary heritage sites that force people and ecosystems to adapt to trauma. We hope that the exhibition prompts reflection on global issues such as pollution, while also emphasising human and environmental resilience.”
The work has already had a profound impact on those who have experienced it. Attendees Anne and Fabrice Dubuc of the Association des Amis du Monument Canadien de Vimy shared:
“From the very first images of your work, a spellbinding atmosphere took hold. The site of Vimy, so steeped in history, became under your gaze and your soundtrack a space of contemplation, poetry, almost healing… It was like a tale – or better still, an ode. An ode to nature, resilient, silent but alive.”
Ecologies of Violence will travel to Birkbeck’s Peltz Gallery in autumn 2025, offering UK audiences the opportunity to engage with this timely and thought-provoking exploration of heritage, memory and environmental transformation in the aftermath of war.