10 Years Later: Totems of Peace in the Heart of Brussels

The Now-or-Never Moment

Photographing Terror after the Terror Attacks of March 22

Grieving people in Brussels was what I could photograph, but it didn’t feel quite right to me. I could capture the raw faces and quiet moments, yet something in my gut told me the images wouldn’t tell the whole story..

I remember the atmosphere at the Bourse (Place de la Bourse) in the days following the attacks. It was a sea of chalk messages, candles, and flowers. But as a photojournalist, I knew this collective grief was fragile. Next this and being a photojournalist, I felt totally helpless and powerless. how to tell this story of terrorist attacks? I wasn't there, on site. Only just after the attacks with other photographers shooting the vicitms that survived and could walk away.

But I wanted to do something special, something that could be remembered.

One day I heard the city was planning to clear the memorials the very next day.I didn't want these tributes to just become a "general view" in a news archive. I wanted to give them the dignity of a studio portrait.

Flowers on a Black Cloth

I took a simple black cloth down to the street and started placing individual items on it—bouquets, notes, small tokens left by grieving strangers. By isolating them against that black background, the flowers weren't just "street debris" anymore. They became Totems of Peace.

I photographed them right there on the pavement, racing against the cleanup crews. It was a "now or never" project that has since been published and sold a few times, but its real value for me is as a time capsule of Brussels' resilience.

A Decade of Memory

Ten years on, the city has moved forward, but the scent of those flowers and the weight of that silence still linger in these images. Looking at these photos today reminds me why we do what we do: we capture the things that are about to disappear so they never truly leave us.

You can read more on this series in my documentary portfolio.