Can We See

Niels Schabrod’s photographs represent a quest for Europe’s icons, for historical snapshots in our collective memory that make sense of and shed light on our understanding of the past. For his project, Schabrod visited four key locations from two centuries: Waterloo, the Somme, as well as the theatres of the Spanish Civil War and of the D-Day landing in 1944 — places that clearly refer to historical events that, given their relevance to remembrance culture and political history, have informed the development, policies and self-image of the European Union.

Schabrod’s works invite spectators to think about the legacy of those events and our response to them. His photographs show not only the sites themselves, but also the soldiers, politicians, reenactors, and tourists who flock to these battlefields. In conjunction with quotations and textual fragments, they act as a kaleidoscope that continuously shakes up historical details and rearranges them to form ever-new patterns.

Text in English, German and, French.