A Stitch in Time
My practice as an artist draws upon both aspects of my education – in Fine Art and Museum Studies
– to deconstruct official, historical narratives and to question traditional forms of representation. In
particular it explores the relationship between people and their past; how this changes over time and
in relation to wider society. My investigations also question the validity of authorship, challenging
notions of authority and institutional objectivity by drawing attention to omissions, distortions and
alternative ways of seeing. A single artwork may frequently explore seemingly oppositional themes
such as memory and counter-memory or personal and collective experience.
Image: Yesterday’s News (detail), patchwork quilt made from
machine-stitched newspapers, 2005,
173 x 135 cm, Whitworth Art Gallery collection
My sewing heritage
‘…we think back through our mothers, if we are women…’ 1
Quilts are both aesthetic objects and a source of warmth and comfort. I inherited the compulsion to
quilt from my great-grandmother, who sewed patchwork blankets at home, as a means of earning a
little independence. Though I never met her I was told the story by my grandmother, whose job it
was as a child to collect the patches from a local, Jewish textile merchant and deliver the finished
products. Like many Mancunians, textiles shaped our family. Despite having ambitions to become a
teacher, my grandmother2 was made to leave school at 13, to work in the cotton mills of Ancoats.
Luckily she progressed from the factory to the office, eventually becoming a school secretary, though
at home she remained a keen sewer. At the age of 80 she also returned to education, committing
many of the family’s stories to paper and gaining GCSE English in the process.
Supported and encouraged by her parents, my mother3 completed her academic studies, but still
ended up in textiles, being amongst the first to graduate from Manchester College of Art with a BA
Hons in Embroidery. Though she later became an image librarian, she continues to sew at home.
It is therefore no surprise that I feel comfortable holding a needle, though I have never formally trained
to do so. At university my tutors advised against pursuing an interest in craft since emphasis on skill
was seen as ‘dangerous’ and oppositional to the more cerebral pursuit of ideas. There were few
lessons or workshops and tutorials focused on theoretical aspects of artistic practice, rather than the
practical realisation of actual work. Course leaders regularly asserted that Fine Art was as an elite and
academic discipline ‘…appealing to the mind or to the sense of beauty…’ 4 It did not involve the
production of functional objects for mass consumption.
There was also the pervasive idea – as in all patriarchies – that ‘…men’s activities are valued more
highly that women’s.’5 This instilled a fear (later realised when I began approaching galleries as a
professional artist) that by choosing to work in textiles as opposed to painting, sculpture or digital
media, my practice would be duly judged and constricted. According to the feminist design historian,
Cheryl Buckley:
‘Women are considered to possess sex-specific skills that determine their design abilities;
they are apparently dexterous, decorative, and meticulous. These skills mean that women
are considered to be naturally suited to certain areas of design production, namely, the
so-called decorative arts, including such work as jewellery, embroidery, graphic
illustration, weaving, knitting, pottery and dressmaking. Linking all these activities
together is the notion that they are naturally female; the resulting design products are
either worn by women or produced by them to fulfil essentially domestic tasks.’ 6
Buckley goes on to explain that skills are commonly attributed to biology, with each gender thought
to embody characteristics that are ‘natural’ and ‘appropriate’ to their disposition. This in turn has an
effect on the consumption and value of their work as designers:
‘The designs produced by women in a domestic environment…are used by the family in
the home rather than exchanged for profit within the capitalist marketplace. At this point
capitalism and patriarchy interact to devalue this type of design; essentially, it has been
made in the wrong place for the wrong market – the family.’ 7
Despite these warnings I persisted with my interest, determined to reclaim sewing as a credible means
of expression by acknowledging, referencing and challenging such distortions. I became interested in
the politics of craft and attracted to the idea of exploring monumental subjects from a domestic
perspective. Inspired by the artist Judy Chicago8, I also maintained that both a practical and contextual
understanding of textiles would help me to realise their effective appropriation in conceptual work.
Chicago’s seminal installation ‘The Dinner Party’9 was particularly influential, as were the writings of
feminist art historians Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock.
‘The Dinner Party’ involved a team of 129 women in the creation of 39 place settings dedicated to
female pioneers from history and mythology including Boadicea, Hildegarde of Bingen, Mary
Wollstonecraft and Virginia Woolf. Each setting includes an embroidered cloth and a painted or
sculpted plate with patterns representing aspects of the dinner guest’s persona. Settings are arranged
around a large, triangular table, referencing both female genitalia and the Christian ‘holy trinity’. ‘The
Dinner Party’ attempts to reclaim women’s bodies and achievements through the re-appropriation of
hitherto male-dominated narratives and traditionally feminine forms of expression. However,
‘When the ‘Dinner Party’ exhibition was toured internationally, it drew a large public but
also sparked vehement rejection for a variety of reasons. Conservative art critics felt it was
kitsch or pornography or agitprop, while feminists found that ‘The Dinner Party’ posed a
dilemma, for the work continued to define the female, albeit positively, through biological
criteria, instead of seeing gender identity as a construct and thus one that could be
changed.’10
Indeed, the question of whether it is possible to express female experience without a change in the
prevailing ideology remains contentious. In attempting to reclaim certain terms or practices we are
forced to acknowledge their existing associations, which in turn effects the meaning and value of the
art we produce. Parker and Pollock insist that revision, rather than re-invention is the way forward.
‘…within the present organisation of sexual difference which underpins practical culture,
there is simply no possibility of conjuring up and asserting a positive alternative set of
meanings for women. The work to be done is that of deconstruction. The ’otherness’ of
women is a negative of man and the repression of women in our culture is not without
radical possibilities.’ 11
Commentator Anna Fariello argues that craft could facilitate a new kind of discourse, if it is able to
forge a distinct heritage and language.
‘The very term fine art negates the historically egalitarian values of craft and its influence
on the visual arts…For such debates to be productive, craft must have its own disciplinespecific vocabulary, one grown organically from its own practices.’ 12
Around the same time as researching these issues, I happened to visit the recently-opened Royal
Armouries Museum in Leeds. It was shocking to see rows of highly polished weapons, arranged
decoratively around a central stairwell and in displays charting their technological development - all
void of context and with no indication of the pain or suffering they might have caused. Despite seeing
my surname emblazoned on a number of ammunition crates and machine guns13, the majority of
exhibits failed to resonate. The lack of humanity was alienating and I began to question the neutrality
of museum narratives for the first time. Where were the voices of those who had made, used or been
aggrieved by these objects? Why was emphasis placed on the link between increasingly sophisticated
killing machines and the development of civilisation? And how was the absence of women used to
reinforce male active/ female passive stereotypes? These questions formed the basis of my initial
research and remain important to me today.
Interpreting memories of war
As a postgraduate student in Museum Studies I spent a good deal of time analysing institutional
approaches to remembrance. I learnt that museums, monuments and memorials are about making
sense of our collective past and influencing future attitudes and behaviour. I soon realised that what
and how we remember is a subjective and selective process. As historian Andreas Huyssen points out:
‘The past is not simply there in memory, but it must be articulated to become memory. The
fissure that opens between experiencing an event and remembering it in representation is
unavoidable.’ 14
Remembering is a discriminating process that prioritises, rationalises and eliminates information
according to its contemporary significance. Collective memory can be as unreliable as an individual’s:
‘A society’s memory is negotiated in the social body’s beliefs and values, rituals and
institutions. In the case of modern societies it is shaped by such public sites of memory as
the museum, memorial or monument. Yet the permanence promised by such a monument
is always on quicksand. Some monuments are joyously toppled at times of social upheaval
and others preserve memory in its most ossified form, either as myth or cliché.’ 15
Military museums were originally conceived to illustrate advances in technology, strategy and warfare.
They also displayed war trophies seized from defeated opponents to re-enforce pro-colonialist
beliefs.16 Over time military museums became recruitment vehicles, with regiments competing to
establish themselves as brave, victorious and distinct. For soldiers, a shared identity based on the
perpetuation of myth and tradition was a powerful bonding agent.
The Imperial War Museum was founded in 1917 on contrasting principles, with the aim of
representing everyone effected by conflict17. Indeed early in its conception the institution changed its
name from the ‘National’ to ‘Imperial’ War Museum, in order to more accurately reflect the
contribution of Britain’s colonies to the war effort. While the First World War was still raging, it
launched a national search for items to form the basis of a collection.
‘No aspect of the war effort was to be ignored. Everything from the medical corps to
women’s work, the navy and children’s toys, luck charms to uniforms, was encompassed’. 18
When a northern branch of the museum opened in Manchester 85 years later19, it allowed curators
to address further historical gaps, increasingly apparent due to shifting public opinion. Special displays
shine a spotlight on the experience of minority groups, including Commonwealth troops and women
in active service. The tagline ‘War Shapes Lives’ re-enforces original institutional objectives, but is
undermined by a central, linear timeline focusing chiefly on military activities. Exhibits still include war
trophies (with little contextual information), and medical or technological advances – such as the
discovery of penicillin and the development of the jet engine – are emphasised as positive ‘legacies’
of conflict. Historian Simon Jones claims that despite efforts to the contrary, IWM is ‘bourne out of
the sustaining ideology of war’ and thus ‘tend[s] not to question the rightness of the struggles
commemorated’.20
In response to this research and in the vein of artists such as Fred Wilson21 and Susan Hiller22, I have
deliberately adopted a questioning approach to both my work in museums and my practice as an
artist. Instead of providing answers or assertions I create layers of meaning, with the aim of inspiring
reflection and consideration of alternative points of view. In contrast to traditional memorials which
employ permanent materials and concrete statements, I exploit the flexible and perishable qualities
of fabric and paper, which transform over time and in accordance with contemporary discourse. In
the words of sociologist, Lewis Mumford:
‘Stone gives a false sense of continuity and a deceptive assurance of life.’ 23
Wilson’s 1992 installation ‘Mining the Museum’
24
signalled a radical departure from the didactic
interpretation of material objects, ignoring historic and taxonomic convention in order to illicit hidden
meaning and initiate dialogue. It has been a major influence on my practice.
‘Acting as curator, historian and artist, Wilson sought to reveal untold stories embedded in
these objects, by creating surprising juxtapositions, and playing with the placement of
objects within the physical space of the gallery. A case labelled ‘Metalwork 1793-1880’
contained highly polished Repousse-style silver table settings produced for the elite of
Baltimore society surrounding a pair of grim iron slave shackles produced in the same
period.’ 25
Instead of imparting knowledge by describing his intentions via a label, Wilson invites contemplation;
refusing to treat visitors like a blank canvas onto which particular facts or ideas can be projected but
instead conceding the existence of prior knowledge or experience and willing us to draw our own
conclusions. Elsewhere in the installation a number of objects were presented facing away from the
viewer, towards the wall.
‘These strategic interventions, presented in the context of the historical museum set up
competing and often contradictory narratives that provoked audiences to question not only
how history is represented, but how it is obscured. In short, Wilson assumed the role of
critical historian under the auspices of art and in the role of an artist; he transformed the
possibilities for historical discourse and presented new ways to consider the role of the arts
in relation to history.’26
My employment in museums has been largely concerned with informal learning and community
engagement, though I was the Access and Interpretation Officer at Gallery Oldham for six years27.
During that time I revised the organisation’s interpretation strategy (to encourage a more interactive
relationship with audiences) and initiated projects to increase the number of voices heard within art,
social history and natural history exhibitions.
In a previous job at Museums Sheffield, I had managed an oral history project relating to the city’s
extensive collection of cutlery28, and became increasingly interested in the discipline (which seeks to
document ‘invisible’ stories through recorded, audio interviews). Oral history provides invaluable
insight into people’s thoughts, motivations and experiences whilst acknowledging both the fallibility
of memory and distortions caused by personal perceptions and agendas. It provides an informal and
ephemeral alternative to the material culture assembled in museums and can empower
underrepresented groups by giving them a means to voice and share their experiences.
‘Oral history gives history back to the people in their own words. And in giving them a past,
it also helps them towards a future of their own making.’29
As demonstrated at the beginning of this paper, there is a strong tradition of storytelling in my own
family. Relatives who I never met were brought alive by my grandmother, who struggled to remember
dates, places and names, but could recall minute details of her everyday life from the past eighty years,
as if they had happened yesterday. On visits, we often ended up reminiscing after making jam, flicking
through the faded pages of her photograph album, or whilst I sat threading needles for her to use
(albeit with difficulty due to debilitating cataracts), over the coming weeks. She had an amazing ability
to link the past and present, often forming forward-thinking views based on previous experiences. I
loved hearing anecdotes and the sense of ‘rootedness’ that they bestowed upon me.
I am still actively involved in the collection and appropriation of oral history and recently co-authored
a beginner’s guide for community groups, commissioned by The Heritage Lottery Fund30.
Quilting to both remember and forget
Image: Deathbed, patchwork quilt made of cyanotype prints on fabric, 1998,
170 x 127 cm, Artist’s own collection
When I first began quilting, conflict overseas was a concept outside of my experience. I collected
abandoned images of soldiers from flea markets and junk shops, worrying about who would take
responsibility for their remembrance in the absence of family or friends. As veterans of the First World
War faced extinction, I wondered how and why we would continue its commemoration.
Working along the lines of French artist, Christian Boltanski, I quickly amassed an archive of
photographs, memories and objects; some offered willingly by loving relatives with an interest in the
preservation of their family history; others found discarded, with no contextual information. I treated
all the things I acquired as ‘sacred’ and took uniform responsibility for their care. (Unlike museums
which now have strict collecting policies due to limited storage space, so dispose of everyday objects
that do not have a well-documented, associated story). My main concern was how to represent each
soldier with parity; as an individual, within a disparate group whose only common attribute was a
shared experience of conflict.
Boltanski is also interested in personal memories and experiences, but less concerned with the
Western veneration of ‘dead’ or ‘redundant’ material objects. He mourns the loss of traditions and
stories that provide a continuum between past and present and bring the personal to life:
“Large memory is recorded in books and ‘small memory’ is about little things: trivia, jokes.
Part of my work then has been about trying to preserve ‘small memory’ because often
when someone dies, that memory disappears. Yet that ‘small memory’ is what makes
people different from one another, unique. These memories are fragile; I wanted to save
them.” 31
My first patchwork ‘Deathbed’, was made using an impermanent method of photography known as
‘cyanotype’ to transfer portraits of soldiers onto fabric. I liked the way it reproduced ghostly, blue and
white negatives of varying shades, according to the composition of the material onto which
photographic fluid had been painted; cottons absorbed more dye, resulting in a deep cyan; polycottons were more resistant, resulting in a much paler shade of blue. I also liked the idea that the
images would continue to develop with exposure to daylight and would ultimately disappear over
time.
In ‘The Texture of Memory’, cultural theorist James E. Young introduces the countermonument by
describing the ‘Monument Against Fascism’ at Harburg close to the city of Hamburg in Germany.
Initially installed in 1986, the monument comprised a 12 metre aluminium pillar, plated with a layer
of lead. Visitors were encouraged to pledge their vigilance by scratching signatures on the
monument’s surface. As 1.5 metre sections were filled, the pillar was lowered into the ground until it
eventually disappeared. A remaining inscription proclaimed that ‘In the end it is only we ourselves
who can rise up against injustice’. As Young explains:
‘The countermonument thus flouts any number of cherished memorial conventions: its aim
is not to console but to provoke; not to remain fixed but to change; not to be everlasting but
to disappear; not to be ignored by passers-by but to demand interaction; not to remain
pristine but to invite its own violation and de-sanctification; not to accept graciously the
burden of memory but to throw it back at the town’s feet.’ 32
Image: The Presence of Absence, patchwork quilt made of 1cm x 1cm
squares of hand and machine stitched newsprint, 2010, 243 x 160 cm,
Victoria and Albert Museum collection
I used these ideas to produce ‘The Presence of Absence’ for the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2010.
The quilt comprises 38,000 tiny (1cm x 1cm) squares of newsprint, each representing a life lost as the
result of conflict in Iraq between the start of the war in March 2003 and the death of the one
hundredth British soldier in January 200633. The many thousands of blanks signify the estimated
number of civilian casualties; increasingly absent from our newspaper columns. They are interspersed
with portraits of military casualties, as and when the chronology of their deaths were reported. The
quality of the varying newsprint means that the squares discolour at varying rates and the piece will
eventually disintegrate.
Creating the quilt was both a labour of love and an act of endurance. It took 40 – 50 hours a week for
a period of seven months to sew all the component squares together by hand, with a personal monthly
average of around 5,000. The sheer volume of squares needed dictated their size (if the quilt was to
retain domestic, rather than monumental proportions), which in turn meant they were too small and
fragile to pass easily through a machine.
A further 54 individuals contributed by participating in quilting bees or sewing at home, exchanging
completed 4 x 4 cm squares for more patches and thread. Amongst the contributors were Eagles’
Wing, a group of women refugee and asylum seekers with whom I had made friends on an earlier
project. The women meet regularly to sew and chat; some finding quiet solace in the company of their
peers, others seeking new opportunities and the chance to socialise. Whilst making the quilt we
discussed their experiences of conflict and displacement, seeking refuge in the UK and the value of
both remembering and forgetting the past. It then took an additional two months for me to piece
smaller sections together by machine, until the double-sized quilt was complete.
Both the ‘The Presence of Absence’ and ‘Yesterday’s News’ (an earlier newspaper quilt, documenting
responses to 9/11) differ from earlier works, not only because they are made of paper, but also
because they were made to hang on a gallery wall. Furthermore, they address contemporary conflict
at a time when the way it will be remembered is still in discussion. By contrasting the throw-away
sentiments of tabloid headlines with the labour-intensive act of producing a traditional family
heirloom, they call into question the very process of how and why we remember.
I have recently reverted to quilting in fabric, for a piece commissioned by Imperial War Museum North
to commemorate the centenary of the First World War. Returning to earlier research for inspiration,
I re-discovered the poems that shape the lens through which we now view this conflict. In particular I
was drawn to numerous analogies made between sleep – unattainable but highly desirable to a soldier
on the front line – and death. With this in mind I set out to explore such contradictions, eventually
producing a warm and comforting blanket, embellished with ‘memento mori’ to destabilise its
functional appeal.
‘The Sleeping Green Between’ remembers my great-grandfather John Weston34, who died on the
battlefields of Belgium in 1915. The title of the piece refers to a line in a poem by Isaac Rosenberg
called ‘Break of Day in The Trenches’35, which contrasts the chaos of war with the seeming tranquillity
of no-man’s land. I have used a woollen, military blanket as a backdrop for this work, not only to evoke
the historical period but also to represent the landscape of the Western Front. Subtle quilting lines
echo the undulating surface of fields still pockmarked with hidden, overgrown trenches.
Rosenberg’s poem refers to a limited palette of just three colours, which I have also adopted. In
addition to ‘green’, ‘red’ evokes both literal and allegorical meaning:
‘Poppies, whose roots are in man’s veins
Drop and are ever dropping’
The final colour ‘white’, refers to dust that has gathered along the parched earth of the trenches and
is another metaphor for death.
Onto the green base, I have plotted a patched section inspired by Red Cross quilts of the period. Such
quilts were made by communities across Britain, Canada and America and auctioned to raise funds for
the war effort. They often included cross-shaped patches, or adhered to a restricted red and white
colour palette, with patterns and templates frequently reproduced in women’s magazines. Some also
featured the signatures of each contributor.
The patched section of ‘The Sleeping Green Between’ comprises 177 white crosses (each representing
a grave at R.E. Farm Cemetery), and one red one (indicating the specific grave where John Weston is
buried). The crosses also reference the simple, uniform design of Commonwealth War Grave
headstones found in cemeteries all over the world. The whole blanket is overlaid with a stencilled plan
of the graveyard, downloaded from the CWG website36.
Image: The Sleeping Green Between, coverlet featuring patchwork section
and stencilling in acrylic, 2014, 149 x 231 cm, Artist’s own collection
In the introduction to her book ‘An Intimate Distance’37, the feminist art historian Rosemary Betterton
recalls a patchwork quilt of complex design that she started enthusiastically as a teenager, but never
managed to complete.
‘It carried with it a sense of feminine identity, experienced as a mixture of satisfaction and
frustration, achievement and failure, attachment and loss.’38
She equates this feeling to the process of ‘gathering and re-using’ ideas for research and
publication, which can be ‘shaped into new patterns of my own making’.
In my experience, sewing is not only instinctive and symbolic, but can also be used as an effective tool
for exploring mythologies relating to gender, conflict and remembrance. Quilting can be a solitary act
of devotion, or a trigger for communal interaction, bringing people of different backgrounds, with
differing interests or agendas together. Patchwork provides both the structure to collect and
rationalise components, and the freedom to experiment with composition, tradition and context. It is
both a metaphorical and literal means of piecing fragments of history together.
1
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (London: Penguin, 1945), 76.
2
Isabella Weston (nee Mackay) was born in 1912. She had 12 siblings (7 brothers and 5 sisters). The
name of the mill where she worked is unknown.
3
My mother, Lynne Vickers (nee Weston) was born in 1947 and attended Manchester College of Art
from 1964 to 1968.
4
Robert E. Allen, (ed) The Concise Oxford Dictionary (London: Clarendon Press, 1991) 315.
5
Cheryl Buckley, ‘Made in Patriarchy: Toward a Feminist Analysis of Women in Design’ Design Issues
Vol 3, No. 21 (Massachusetts and London: The MIT Press, 1986), 3-14.
6
Ibid, 4.
7
Ibid, 5.
8
Judy Chicago (1939 –) is an American artist based in Chicago.
9
The Dinner Party was created between 1974 and 1979. It toured a number of American and
international venues before finding a permanent home at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for
Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, New York in 2007.
10
Baker Hess, ‘Judy Chicago’ in Uta Grosenick, (ed) Women Artists In the 20th and 21st Century
(Cologne: Taschen, 2001) 83.
11
12
Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock, Old Mistresses (London: Pandora, 1981) 132.
Anna Fariello, ‘Making and Naming’ in Maria Elena Buszek, (ed) Extra/ Ordinary: Craft and
Contemporary Art (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2011) 23.
13
Vickers’ steel foundry was established in Sheffield in 1828, and rapidly expanded from the
production of sheet metal to the manufacture of components for ships, aircraft, cars and
armaments. The first artillery piece was produced in 1890. The Vickers’ machine gun was employed
by the British Army for over 50 years.
14
Andreas Huyssen, Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia (New York and London:
Routledge, 1995) 3.
15
Ibid, 249-250.
16
Simon Jones, (1996) ‘Making Histories of Wars’ in Gaynor Kavannagh, (ed) Making Histories in
Museums (London and New York: Leicester University Press, 2005) 152-162.
17
The first display of artefacts was opened by King George V at The Crystal Palace in 1920. The
museum moved to its current home at the former site of Bethlem Royal Hospital (known as Bedlam)
in 1936. More information on the history of the museum is available at URL:
<www.iwm.org.uk/corporate/about-IWM> [accessed 29 July 2014].
18
Gaynor Kavannagh, Dream Spaces: Memory and The Museum (London and New York: Leicester
University Press, 2000) 61.
19
Imperial War Museum North opened in Trafford, Greater Manchester in 2002.
20
Simon Jones, (1996) ‘Making Histories of Wars’ in Gaynor Kavannagh, (ed) Making Histories in
Museums (London and New York: Leicester University Press, 2005) 158.
21
Fred Wilson (1954 –) is an African American artist from New York.
22
Susan Hiller (1940 –) is an American-born artist based in London. She is interested in museums and
archives, often using collections of objects, photographs and documents as the basis for conceptual
installations exploring their appropriation and interpretation.
23
Lewis Mumford, quoted in James E. Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and
Meaning, (New Haven and London Yale University Press, 1993) 4.
24
Mining the Museum interpreted objects from The Maryland Historical Society collection in
Baltimore. Another, related piece of the artist’s work, Mine/Yours is available to view online at URL:
<http://www.artsjournal.com/artopia/images/yourssmall.jpg> [accessed 29 July 2014].
25
Dipti Desai, Jessica Hamlin & Rachel Mattson, History as Art, Art as History: Contemporary Art
and Social Studies Education, (New York: Routledge, 2010) 3.
26
Ibid, 4.
27
2005 - 2011
28
2004 - 2005
29
Paul Thompson, The Voice of the Past, (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998) 308.
30
William Longshaw & Jennifer Vickers, What’s the Point of Oral History? (2014) online publication
available to download via <http://www.racearchive.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/oral-historytoolkit.pdf> [accessed 19 August 2014].
31
Christian Boltanski, (1944 –) quoted in interview with Tamar Garb, Christian Boltanski (London:
Phaidon Press, 1997) 19.
32
James E. Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning, (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 1993) 30.
33
Corporal Gordon Pritchard of The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards died in an explosion on 31st January
2006.
34
Private John Weston died in 1915 and is buried at R.E. Farm Cemetery near Wulvergem in Belgium.
Until recently, his family knew little about him and had never visited his grave. Research undertaken
by curators at IWM North revealed that he had been a professional soldier stationed in Jersey prior
to the outbreak of the First World War. He was killed in action, age 25 after serving just two months
on the front line. The circumstances of his death remain unknown. John left behind a wife (who later
contracted a derivative of The Spanish Flu known as ‘Sleepy Sicknesses’) and a two-year-old son,
Samuel (husband of Isabella, and my grandfather).
35
Break of Day in the Trenches was first published in December 1916 in the Chicago journal ‘Poetry’.
Rosenberg (1890 – 1918) was the son of Lithuanian Jews, who fled to Britain in the 1880s. He hailed
from a working-class background and was one of the few, celebrated poets of his generation to
serve as a private (rather than an officer) during the war. Prior to enlisting, Rosenberg was a Fine Art
student at The Slade in London.
36
<http://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/9900/R.E.%20FARM%20CEMETERY> [accessed
29 July 2014]
37
Rosemary Betterton, An Intimate Distance: Women, Artists and The Body, (Oxon and New York:
Routledge, 1996) 1.
38
Ibid.