Description

During World War II, Adolf Hitler gave the order for a line of defense to be constructed along the coasts of the western front. Ranging from the French-Spanish border to the north of Norway, this Atlantic Wall is a series of bunkers, barricades and coastal batteries. Over the past year, Stephan Vanfleteren has photographed this ‘wall’ of more than 2600 kilometres in his trademark black-and-white style. He planted his tripod on various beaches in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, climbed cliff faces in France, sailed between the fjords of Norway and stood in the surf in Denmark to photograph the ruins of the largest military structure of the previous century. Vanfleteren shows his wonder for the untamed architectural beauty of these concrete structures, and the power of nature as it slowly reclaims a wall that were once considered impenetrable. AUTHOR: Stephan Vanfleteren: photographer; Benoit Strubbe: research assistant, Province of West Flanders/Raversyde; Mathieu de Meyer: Coordinator-Curator, Atlantic Wall Raversyde. SELLING POINT: . A photographic monument, immortalising the remains of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall, which stretched across Europe’s western coast 100 b/w images Text in English and French