LOST GENERATION
BREWHOUSE
Arts Centre
Burton upon Trent
25th June to 25th July
Entertainment and opportunity to meet the artist 2nd July 7-9pm
2D & 3D work from the collaboration with students at Abbot Beyne school, as well paintings and video from previous collaborations with schools in Yorkshire and the Midlands.
If you were 14 on the 4th August 1914 then either you or your friends would not have been alive 4 years later. 30% of 16-20 years olds died during WW1. And of those that survived most would have been physically injured and mentally scarred.
Lost Generation is an initiative to make the WW1 centenary more relevant to young people by involving them in the creation of original art works.
GEORGE LEEDHAM
In 1914 George Leedham was playing in the First 15 at Burton Grammar School. Two years later he was killed in action on the Western Front.
Burton Grammar later became Abbot Beyne school and stories such as that of George Leedham form part of the schools's past. His picture was found by Jo Brassington art teacher at Abbot Beyne School during the Lost Generation project.
220415 Painting by Andy Farr
Thursday, April 22nd, 1915, five o'clock in the afternoon. the wind turned and members of a special unit of the German Army opened the valves on a line of more than 6000 steel cylinders at Ypres, Belgium.
Fritz Haber, good or evil? Haber the talented chemist, offered his services to the German Army.
He began experimenting with chlorine gas to be used in Trench Warfare.
His wife committed suicide in protest against his work.
Dusk was falling when from the German trenches in front of the French line rose that strange green cloud of death. The light north-easterly breeze wafted it toward them, and in a moment death had them by the throat
… in the gathering dark of that awful night they fought with the terror, running blindly in the gas-cloud, and dropping with breasts heaving in agony
… hundreds of them fell and died; others lay helpless, froth upon their agonized lips and their racked bodies tearing nausea …
Captain Hugh Pollard
But Haber also won a nobel prize for finding a way of synthesising ammonia for fertiliser from nitrogen and hydrogen.Making it possible to create huge amounts of fertiliser.
The fertiliser went on to be used on a large scale, bringing about a huge increase in crop yields, and practically banishing the fear of famine in large parts of the world.
WW1 Recruitment Office at the Brewhouse Arts Centre Burton upon Trent. Built from work by students at Abbot Beyne School.
The famous WW1 recruiting poster recreated using photographs of the Abbot Beyne Art Class
WW1 Recruitment Office at the Brewhouse Arts Centre Burton upon Trent. Built from work by students at Abbot Beyne School.
RECRUITING OFFICE
Built using the work of the Abbot Beyne class. We wanted to contrast the naive enthusiam of those volunteering, with the reality of their fate. The installation includes cut-out figures of boys from the class, a shop mannequin dressed in a WW1 uniform, with wounds created using stage make-up, and poppies made from the class using a mix of materials.
The famous Kitchener recruiting poster was recreated as a photomontage derived from all the work with the students.
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