Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt created the series « Sur la Ligne » (« Borderline ») between 1992 and 1994 on the invitation of the CRP (the Nord Pas-de-Calais Regional Centre for Photography) as part of the Mission Photographique Transmanche n°17, looking at the border areas separating Belgium and France.  These shared areas are often a reflection of the difficult evolution of the mining and steel industries.  The photographer chose to focus on the local residents, and, through his presence in their daily routines and at fairs in the area, he revealed their way of life.

Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt has a background in documentary photography.  His Leica gives him great flexibility, and while his photos are well composed and elegant, they are nevertheless marked by a constant sense of humour which allows him to maintain just the right distance from the reality that surrounds him.  Despite the humour, he still manages to provoke a reaction: the attitudes and reactions that he highlights are not at all anodine.

“…At a time when customs barriers were falling, I thought it might be interesting to study this extremely artificial border between France and Belgium, which follows no physical feature like a river or a mountain range…. This border zone, whether on the French or Belgian side, is marked by a continuity of landscape, of lighting, of architecture.  It has been the theatre of repeated conflicts down through the years.  Economic activities, and in particular the industrial revolution centred around the mining areas running from Liege to Bethune, as well as linguistic similarities, have knitted relationships of cross-border solidarity.  For all that, and despite all the points in common, the observer is struck by the cultural discontinuities, differences in colours, or even in housing.  A curious zone, marked by the passage of men and of their imaginations, has developed on both sides of the border over time.  Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt’s predilection for this sort of strange and revealing place prompted the Regional Centre for Photography to contact him.  His reply, in a style full of irony and compassion, turns this investigation of cross-border reality into a metaphor…”

Pierre Devin in Sur la ligne, collection « Mission Photographique Transmanche » n° 17, CRP, Douchy-les-Mines, 1994.