“Shellfire churned up mud over a large part of the battlefield. Shell-hole overlapped shell-hole in a process known as ‘confluent smallpox’, and the land came to resemble porridge. Hundreds of thousands were killed. You can still see the bones of the dead, and pick up bits of shrapnel and shells, and the skulls of mules. By focussing on what happened then, I’m also focussing on what’s happening at the moment in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan. A large element of my message is that we don’t learn from history, and we repeat mistakes. I’m using the willows as symbols for people and the damage war does to people and society”.

The ninetieth anniversary of the battle falls this year, and the hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the conflict occurs in 2014, so Chasseaud will be busy extending the project. “I am making an artist’s book with images and poetry and perhaps pieces of willow. And I plan to create humanoid sculptures from willow shoots on the site of the battle”, he says. “Some areas of land never recovered from the war, but the area around Ypres was re-cultivated by farmers straight afterwards. Nevertheless, you can still see the effects on the landscape of the trenches and mine craters. I have worked with archaeologists on the site: it’s when you start digging that you really find evidence of the horror of what happened”. AL