A beautiful mind

Peter Dench talks to photographer Marc Wilson about his new book, for which he walked 500km to photograph First World War mountain forts

A cross 750 pages, 370 photographs and 22 stories, Marc Wilson's photobook, A Wounded Landscape: Bearing Witness To The Holocaust (AWL), captures the experiences of individuals who survived or were murdered in the Holocaust. Six years in the making, it's fair to say that in producing the work, Marc's soul took a pummelling.

His latest project, Remnants, was much gentler on his senses. A collaboration with Italian architect and researcher Marco Ferrari, Remnants explores both the historical and ecological aspects of First World War mountain forts of the Trentino-Alto Adige region of northern Italy. 'Most of the research had been done already,' Marc explains. 'I went to Italy in 2021 and ended up doing two location trips of three weeks each. There were 30-40 places I wanted to visit. I arrived, and obviously it was blue skies with blazing sun and lush green colours. I did a lot of recce, that first trip. Then those famous clouds full of rain that seem to follow me around appeared and I could start photographing.'

Smooth and simple