Anne-Laure Plotard, is the site manager, and a painting restorer and curator. Next to her, Ouaziz Abrous is fire safety and emergency foreman. And beside him, Oceane Taisne is a stained glass artist.
They are photographed in black and white — creative portraits, with them staring into a visionary distance, and with lighting and effects that give an ethereal quality. They seem to be gazing into the future, as much as their practical skills have them firmly focused on the present and what surely must be the world’s most visible restoration project. For these big portraits, with explanation of the subject and their skills, are displayed on a long wall in front of and underneath the completely recognisable two towers of Notre Dame Cathedral.
This medieval Catholic cathedral on the eastern end of Ile de la Cite, a small island in the Seine River in the centre of Paris, was on the ruins of earlier religious sites — a Roman temple dedicated to Jupiter and a Christian Romanesque basilica. This place, built between the 12th and 14th centuries, is renowned for its French Gothic architecture, and dedicated to the Virgin Mary. To many locals, it is “Our Lady of Paris”.
It is also now renowned for the fire in April 2019 that engulfed it and destroyed the roof and spire. The vision of the fire ripping through the roof and up into the night sky is haunting — certainly for me, for the people of Paris and, I am sure, for most of the 12 million people who visited the cathedral each.