Here Are The Young Men Project By Claire Felicie

The series “Here are the young men”, The Netherlands – Afghanistan, 2009-2010, show photos of Dutch marines deployed to Afghanistan. These marines are young boys, full of excitement and expectations who are being sent to a war zone. There they are confronted with pain, sadness and death. Will something appear on their faces of these experiences? To find an answer to this question Claire Felicie photographed the marines of the 13th infantry company of the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps, before, during and after their deployment in Uruzgan.
Claire Felicie was born in the south of the Netherlands, in the city of Breda, in 1966. She took first pictures with her brother’s camera at the age of 18. When she developed the film and saw the results, she immidiatly bought a camera of her own. In 1988, after the birth of her eldest son (who is now a marine in the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps) she moved to Amsterdam with her husband. There she studied history at the University of Amsterdam and gave birth to four more children in the coming years.
In 2001 she decided to start her own business in photography, and since then she has had a lot of exhibitions and publications with her three so far photoseries: In the forecourt, 2001-2004; Moonstruck/How to disappear completely, 2005; and Here are the young men, 2009-2010. In 2007 she made the children’s book ‘Girl of the Nightwatch’ in cooperation with famous Dutch artist Jan Wolkers. In 2009 she realised the big art project ‘Screenview’: 44 photographs fixed on the screens on the highway A10-West, Amsterdam.