Paul Cliff

588 men and boys from Bury and its surrounding district were killed during the first seventeen months of WW1. This project attempts to explore the contemporary narratives of our physical connection to the past of over one hundred years ago using the constance of place today. I attempt to explore ideas of self, identity and home within our socio-political landscape.

'Lest We Forget', heralded the memorial book to these dead men and boys published by The Bury Times in the period shortly after the end of the war. Some barely remembered at that very point; their details so scantily recorded reveal merely their own dead end.

Through further research in Bury Library and Archive and the Commonwealth War Grave Commission database it’s been possible to pinpoint the exact last known address for the majority of these 588 men and boys. 

This project visits these pinpoints on foot, realising them using a pinhole camera to make a 20 minute exposure on 10x8 inch paper negative while simultaneously sound recording my own personal two minutes of silence in remembrance off that particular man or boy.

I see this an as endeavour to recognise the individual, freeing him from the confines of the mass memorial; as an act to un-forget a forgotten soul.