In Bure, a small French commune in the Meuse department in the Grand Est region, French and German opponents of nuclear power have been campaigning for decades against the construction of a permanent disposal site for highly radioactive nuclear waste. The opposition movement took shape in the Lejuc forest, where Jürgen Nefzger photographed the everyday life of a group of protesters who had made the woods their temporary home until the camp was cleared in February 2018. The images clearly show the asymmetry between a heavily armed state and the resistance of a few individuals, who at first glance seem to have no chance. As a gesture, however, the protest has an inherent latency, representing an irrepressible “no”. Bure—a long-term photographic study of modern-day civil resistance—is influenced by Henry David Thoreau’s text On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. This groundbreaking essay from 1849 is published here as an accompaniment to Nefzger’s photographs.

92pp, 240 × 300 mm, 57 colour photographs
Japanese bound softcover
English, French
Spector Books, July 2019