The photographs in this book were taken from 2006 to 2009 in the mining regions of Nord – Pas-de-Calais, Charleroi, and Borinage.

By virtue of her work as a press photographer up to the year 2000, Sophie Deballe is sensitive to questions of territory and the present. At that time she also conducted photographic research on the side. Her photographic aesthetic, liked to walking, was established during solitary walks that began near her home amid the industrial heritage of Roubaix, and then continued into the Marichiennes forest, along the Coutances coast and to the top of the coal tips of the mining region of Nord – Pas-de-Calais. Her walks are currently extending to Belgium and recently crossed the forests of Argonne.