the longest line
earthenware
h 12cm l 50cm (approx)
'we were there'
This work was done as a group project. Second year BA Ceramic Design students were commissioned by the National Memorial Arboretum, (thenma.org.uk), to make work to commemorate the 75th anniversary of VE and VJ Day, based on the theme "Tea for II'
The work of my group, 'Memory Collective', seeks to expand the narrative of World War Two, placing stories of Black African and Indian British Commonwealth soldiers in the mainstream of the celebration and commemoration. The diversity of origin or experience of the many soldiers who contributed to the war could not be captured in a single body of work, so the multinational British 14th Army, (who held the longest military line from the the Bay of Bengal to the border of China) was used as the touchstone, in the piece entitled 'The Longest Line".
The work was accompanied by a short film - 'we were there', which juxtaposes archival photographs and contemporary interviews .
The work ended abruptly due to the coronavirus pandemic, and unfortunately the gallery exhibition was cancelled.
Absence.Presence.
Installation
tiled benches with Rockingham glaze, central bed of indigenous flowers from the Commonwealth countries that fought for Britain in World War Two
The year group installation represented a street tea party in which the absence -either at the celebration, or from the mainstream narrative, of non-white soldiers from the Commonwealth is represented by the flower bed, in the place of a table.