Modern photograph of golden farm fields stretching away into the distance. In the foreground, a deteriorating unexploded WWI shell sits in the dirt.

Iron Harvest

Open April 22, 2025 West Lobby Gallery

Iron Harvest explores the open wounds that World War I battles left in the fields of northeastern France and Belgium.

 

Uncounted pieces of unexploded ordnance fired over a century ago lie waiting below the surface. Most activity is still prohibited in the “Red Zone.” Whole towns have disappeared from the map, too unsafe to return to their poisoned grounds. Efforts to remove munitions and cleanse the earth, still ongoing since the end of the war, are expected to last at least another century.

 

Black and white aerial photograph of fields covered in gas and smoke

 

Gas attack at the Somme.

Object ID: 1976.227.14

Modern photograph of four unexploded shells sitting in the grass next to a plowed field

 

Somme. The “Iron Harvest,” unexploded shells revealed by ploughing.

Object ID: 2021.169.2

Black and white aerial photograph of trench lines snaking over a vast area with shell craters dotting the landscape

 

Wartime aerial photograph of trench lines and shell craters along the Yser Canal, Belgium.

Object ID: 1976.227.220

Modern aerial photograph of trenches carving through a green landscape

 

Somme. Trenches in Newfoundland Memorial Park at Beaumont Hamel.

Object ID: 2021.169.98

Through historical photographs of fields and forests decimated by WWI armies and haunting modern-day photography of these still-dangerous landscapes, visitors will confront a lingering legacy of war that outlasts conflicts by generations. 

Black and white photograph of a field covered in arcs and spirals of barbed wire

 

Wire entanglements on the front line.

Object ID: 1976.227.3

Modern close-up of WWI-era barbed-wire

 

Vosges. Le Ligne, barbed wire.

Object ID: 2021.169.10

Contemporary photos a gift of Michael St Maur Sheil

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