Plugstreet Poppies, Ploegsteert, Belgium (2014) | 29 3/8” x 29 ¼” (74.6 x 74.3 cm) | Film negative with darkroom manipulation.

Trenches, Canadian National Vimy Memorial, Vimy, France (2014) | 28 ¼” x 28 3/8” (71.8 x 72.2 cm) | Pinhole negative with darkroom manipulation.

Frezenberg Ridge, near the Princess Patricia’s Light Infantry Memorial, Belgium (2014) | 22 ¼” x 19 ¾” (56.5 x 50 cm) | Film negative with darkroom manipulation.

Pond Farm Crater, Wulvergem, Belgium (2014) | 19 ½” x 19 ¾” (49.5 x 50.1 cm) | Pinhole negative with darkroom manipulation.

Field, Passchendaele, Belgium (2014) | 21 ¼” x 19 ¾” (54 x 50.2 cm) | Film negative with darkroom manipulation.

Vimy Crater and Flowers, Vimy Memorial Park (2014) | 19 ¾”x 19 ¾” (49.7 x 49.7cm) | Film negative with darkroom manipulation.

Caterpillar Crater Constellation, Hill 60, Belgium (2014) | 19” x 19” (48.1 x 48.1 cm) | Film negative with darkroom manipulation.

Flanders Fields 1 Galaxy, Belgium (2014) | 18 3/8” x 18 ¼” (46.8 x 46.5 cm) | Pinhole negative with darkroom manipulation.

Trees, Falling Stones, Vladslo German War Cemetery, Belgium (2016) | 29 1/16 x 29” (73.8 x 73.7 cm) | Pinhole negative with darkroom manipulation.

Cloud, Bearings, over Somme, France (2016) | Image Size: 28 ¼” x 28 ¼” (71.7 x 71.7cm) | Film negative with darkroom manipulation.

Installation at University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Alberta 2015.

Installation at Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris, France (2017)

Installation at Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris, France (2017)

This important series of works focuses on the battlegrounds of WWI, 100 years later. Between 2014 and 2016 Bos photographed in Belgium and France along the historic front lines near Ypres, Passchendaele, Vimy and the Somme, battle sites where Canadian Forces achieved important victories and suffered great loss of life.

Using pinhole and vintage cameras Bos visually explores how time has changed the landscape of these historic battlegrounds 100 years later. In ways other than the presence of memorials, does a memory of that past persist at these sites? Tens of thousands of people who were killed during the war are part of the landscape. Is there a memory in the soil, water, plants, and trees of their presence? Does an echo of war still resonate in the sky above?

Using traditional photographic techniques, manipulation of light in the darkroom and objects found at the sites (a technique called photograms), Bos has created images that layer site documentation and symbolic imagery. Each photograph in this exhibition is a unique (one of a kind) image.

The title of the exhibition ‘The Sleeping Green’ is taken from the 1916 Isaac Rosenberg poem “Break of Day in the Trenches” and refers to the hellish terrain also called “no man’s land” .

This exhibition was first shown at the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery in 2015. New work was created for a larger version of this show that opened at the Canadian Cultural in Paris in 2017 and later traveled to museums across Canada. A catalogue for this exhibition is available through the Univerlsity of Lethbridge Art Gallery.