« Burned matches », 306.000 burned matches, varying sizes, 2016 - project of an installation for the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle in Verdun

--> Created for the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle in Verdun, this installation remains currently at the project stage. A prototype has already been set up (with 25.000 matches) and I’m looking for a place to create the whole installation in situ.


Made of 306.000 burned matches, « Burned matches » refers to the 306.000 French and German soldiers who were killed or disappeared during the Battle of Verdun in 1916, one of the deadliest in history.

While we haven’t experienced that battle directly, or met those who died there, this installation invites us to reflect on what form - a hundred years later - the duty of memory may take, and more generally on our role in the transmission of memory.

The shape, organization and dimensions of this installation remind us of military cemeteries, the fields of ruins and ashes, but also of the fields of culture, symbols of a memory to maintain. From afar, the installation consists of an imposing black mass, stretching off into the distance as far as the eye can see. Up close, it is made of fragile burnt matches, scattered across the floor in hundreds of piles among which the visitor moves.

The more visitors move within the installation, the more it will change: piles will tend to flatten out, matches to be reduced to ashes, and ashes to scatter. While the installation as such will disappear, visitors will take some ash with them - on their shoes, clothes and skin - just like they carry part of the collective memory.

This project recieved the “Centenary” Label of the First World War Centenary Partnership (www.centenaire.org)

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Burned matches