Directeur du musée l'Historial de la Grande Guerre
Nathalie Clin
Historial de la Grande Guerre
Responsable Service « Accueil des Publics » et « Médiateurs-Guides »
Fred & Farid Fred & Farid
FF
Founders / CEO
Olivier Lefebvre
FF
CEO - Partner
Etienne Renaux
FF
Creative Director
François Claux
FF
Art Director
Yann Rougeron
FF
Art Director
Camille Sainson
FF
Art Director
Emilien Point
FF
Art Director
Sonia Dos Santos
FF
Art Director
Julien Beuvry
FF
Art Director
Lucia Otero
FF
Assistant Art director
François Claux
FF
Copywriter
Yann Rougeron
FF
Copywriter
Camille Sainson
FF
Copywriter
Emilien Point
FF
Copywriter
Sonia Dos Santos
FF
Copywriter
Julien Beuvry
FF
Copywriter
Leslie Hatchwell
FF
Account
Caroline Tang
FF
Digital art director
Johanna Mangote
FF
Event art director
Jim Tran
FF
Head of production
Arthur Gaudrie
FF
Chief technical officer
Marie Séjournant
FF
Social media strategist
Background
The Historial of the Great War at Péronne in the Somme is the largest museum dedicated to the 1st World War in France. Its collections showcase the cultural, social and military dimension of this important and cruel chapter of History.
In 2018, the Historial wanted to set up a major project around the theme of ‘Peace to fight’, 100 years after the signing of the Armistice, on November the 11th of 1918, against all current geopolitical tensions.
At a time when extremism and nationalism are plaguing the whole world, the younger generations must never forget past mistakes so as not to reproduce them in the future.
Describe the creative idea (40% of vote)
In the aftermath of World War I, France buried the tomb of an Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. This national military monument is dedicated to the memory of all fallen soldiers during the Great War.
100 years later, we made this symbol of War, a universal symbol of Peace for the younger generations by giving a face to the Unknown Soldier. A face composed of 30,000 men, women, soldiers, nurses or civilians, winners and losers, regardless of their nationality or their origins: the Unknown Face.
This face took the form of an interactive and digital work permanently exhibited in the galleries of the Historial.
Describe the execution (40% of vote)
It took several months to gather enough data to have a significant end result. But to be able to design the Unknown Face, we first had to isolate each portrait from its initial support.
There is almost no cliché of a single portrait dating from the first world war.
The majority of the images we have used come from old army registers, battalion guest books, or medical fact sheets.
A team specialized in the handling of centennial works, scanned and digitized with care, each portrait that the documents contained and then processed them digitally. We have developed an algorithm capable of superimposing one by one the 30,000 portraits obtained, to create a final synthesis.
List the results (20% of vote)
As soon as it was launched, the “Unknown Face” was met by praise from the global media and public opinion: a very wide media coverage with more than 120 national and international press covers. In total, we reached more than 700 million people.
Thanks to the project’s success, visits of the museum rose by 47% in November 2018.
35% of their new public came from younger generations who spent 4 minutes on average watching the Unknown Face and its portraits. The most impressive reaction was the participation of French President E. Macron, who shared the project on his Facebook and Twitter accounts.
But the most important result is the fact that the Unknown Face, thanks to the richness of the Data, will now be part of the educational program for the younger generations and will appear in the history books of all high schools in France starting September 2019.