The Footprint

My childhood bedroom overlooked slag heaps. These gigantic piles of shale are the only landforms in my region, the Hauts-de-France. 

They served as the starting point for my visual investigation into the legacy of three centuries of coal mining in the Northern Mining Basin. Beyond the infrastructure that still stands—once symbols of poverty, now designated as UNESCO World Heritage sites—it is these traces in everyday life that I capture in my photographs. Such exploitation of the land and its people, followed by their abandonment, still has repercussions for the residents, whether or not they are descendants of miners. 

I would like to move beyond the romanticized portrayal of the mining community—often described as poor and courageous—to delve into its culture, understand the transition it is currently undergoing, and give voice to its forgotten memories.