P.Y.M. (2024) 16' 53", 4K digital video, stereo digital audio

'P.Y.M.' shows sites in Belgium and northern France where I can place my grandfather, Percy Young McNiven, during the First World War, including those of the battles of Loos, the Somme and Passchendaele. In doing so, I aim to recover something of his history and that of his comrades, respond to and offer alternatives to forms of memorialisation and remembrance which have emerged in the years since the last participants of this war died, and to represent a particularly charged landscape from which material traces of the war have disappeared, where, in most cases, only the topography familiar to its participants remains.

'P.Y.M.' was made for 'De Verplaatsing' (The Relocation) at Pictura, Dordrecht (NL), in 2024, an exhibition collaboration with Frans van Lent. This work was supported by Creative Scotland.

(Viewing at 4K resolution is recommended. Sound up.)

Lt Percy Young McNiven, MC & Bar, 13th Batallion Royal Scots (1891-1972)