France - Goussainville - Scarred pillar and roadside memorial

This memorial has been placed where a young man called Michael died beneath the TGV and Eurostar train overpass at Goussainville, France. If we drove past this place where someone's life ended, the victim would just be an anonymous statistic but flowers are left to die too and touching poems and dedications are written by family and loved-ones. One reads: “Ses amis." From a project about makeshift shrines: “Britons have long installed memorials in the landscape: Statues and monuments to war heroes, Princesses and the socially privileged. But nowadays we lay wreaths to those who die suddenly - ordinary folk killed as pedestrians, as drivers or by alcohol, all celebrated on our roadsides and in cities with simple, haunting roadside remberences.”

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Filename: memorials001-27-07_2000.jpg
Copyright: Richard Baker
Image Size: 2467x2432 / 566.6KB; atheism memorial shrine death macabre memory family social gesture commemorate place location remembrance token remember public tragedy grief mourning agnostic scene landscape intimate sudden loss culture practice habit tradition floral tribute mortality final loved-one respects bereavement fatality casualty offerings reminder statistics anonymous spiritual expression marker context victim makeshift left emotional sadness sad French Europe EU France Goussainville pillar flowers roadside love sorrow killed bouquets fate Val-d'Oise Paris impact crashed scraped overpass tragic damage accident
Contained in galleries: Richard Baker - All pics

This memorial has been placed where a young man called Michael died beneath the TGV and Eurostar train overpass at Goussainville, France. If we drove past this place where someone's life ended, the victim would just be an anonymous statistic but flowers are left to die too and touching poems and dedications are written by family and loved-ones. One reads: “Ses amis." From a project about makeshift shrines: “Britons have long installed memorials in the landscape: Statues and monuments to war heroes, Princesses and the socially privileged. But nowadays we lay wreaths to those who die suddenly - ordinary folk killed as pedestrians, as drivers or by alcohol, all celebrated on our roadsides and in cities with simple, haunting roadside remberences.”