I will be taking down ‘Flight’ on Wednesday, and it will be set up for a week at Beach Creative, in Herne Bay, to counter-balance an exhibition of illustrations for a book about ‘Tommy Atkins’ by the artist Albany Wiseman.
I’m pleased with visitors’ responses to the installation: I think I have translated what was for most people a cliche (‘shot at dawn’) into reality. The installation was completed with 12 well-documented stories of soldiers who were executed; some of them 16 or 17 years old when they died. They were killed in an attempt to make an example, maintain order in the ranks: it didn’t work as there were more executions later in the war, than in the early years. This research has been absorbing and deeply sad, and I think I’ll continue to develop it over the next four years.
