Torn
From friends and family
From children and land
From work and school
From hopes and dreams
From body, soul and mind
“we just get on with it”
TORN is a powerful exhibition exploring women’s experience of war, conflict and genocide. Lee Karen Stow’s images of red, white and black poppy petals, dried and pressed onto glass, then painted and photographed are presented as a video installation. Her photographs are displayed, along with fragments of text and an evocative soundscape (including the voices of women), from Lee’s 10 years of documenting and working with survivors. TORN is a collaborative project in which Lee Karen Stow has worked alongside Liz Knight (textiles), Hayley Youell (sound) and Hull Women’s Refugee Group to bring a timely reminder of the devastation, and resilience of humanity in the face of conflict and violence.
The exhibition is presented as an immersive sound and video experience played on multiple monitors in a semi-dark gallery space. Large-scale textile works are hung on the walls around. The photographs are beautiful, but for me, what makes this exhibition powerful, is the direct involvement of women survivors – in the textile artworks and the audio experience of their voices in the sound piece. The way they speak so honestly and directly into a community, largely separated from the physical realities of war, makes this an excellent resource – it would be great to see elements of this exhibition made available online, or in the form of material useable in schools and community groups.
Lee Karen Stowes poppy phtoographs were first shown at an exhibition in Liverpool Museums: “Women, War, Peace” as part of 2014’s First World War Centenary.
Her exhibition TORN is in Humber Street Gallery, Hull until 31 December 2017. For more information, visit Humber Street Gallery.
