Nomination DuPho. SO Award 2021
Marianne: “These portraits are part of the project Operation Detachment. I am researching the unique and uncensored war archives of my American grandfather, Bruce Elkus, who was an army photographer in Japan during the Second World War. He captured the aftermath of one of the bloodiest battles, where one of the most iconic images of all time was also made: Raising of the Flag on Iwo Jima. We know the war primarily through this heroic image, but my grandfather’s archive shows the raw reality of war in all its facets; one that to this day we rarely get to see. In Operation Detachment I reconstruct the story of the archive: what does it tell us about this history that we did not already know? I sought out the last remaining war veterans, to find out a piece of my own family history.”
Operation Detachment is a long-term and multimedia project consisting of a three-part radio documentary (the first two parts of which will be broadcast in 2020 by the VPRO under the title Operation Detachment), a future web documentary, newspaper articles, an exhibition and a book.
