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

discipline-specific 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 guns 13, 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 Wilson 21 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; poly-

cottons 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 Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock, Old Mistresses (London: Pandora, 1981) 132.

12 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-history-toolkit.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.