The Individual Remains – Untold Stories of the First World War
The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery is hosting a new display organised in honour of the Centenary of the First World War.
The Individual Remains, Untold Stories of the First World War has been curated by students from the MA Art Gallery and Museum Studies programme at the University of Leeds. This timely exhibition unearths some of the more immediate and profound tales from soldiers serving in the First World War.
The industrialised nature of the First World War is often defined by the scale of human casualty and loss. This quantification, although significant, only serves to present each soldier as one of many, void of personality and distinct experiences.
Using the Liddle collection, held at the University of Leeds' Special Collections, this exhibition brings to light individual soldier's voices and wishes to re-approach the narrative of the First World War through reclaimed and re-purposed objects, personal diaries and pictures. We see the embodied authorship within the objects displayed, a direct response to the conditions of war and the legacies that remain.
As Peter Liddle puts in his text, The British Soldier on the Somme in 1916:
'...[A]n acceptance of military discipline and in section, platoon, company and battalion experience, will have necessarily worn away that manifestation of individual freedom of expression and action which the average Briton instinctively feels is part of his heritage. Nevertheless, in his soul, as might be recorded in letter or diary, the individual remains with his personal qualities, feelings, needs, revealed or concealed.'
An opening reception will take place on Tuesday 28 October at 6pm at the Gallery. Members of the public are invited to come along to take a first look at this new exhibition, talk to the students and explore the remains of the First World War through objects from the Liddle Collection. The exhibition will be officially opened by author, historian and founder of the Liddle Collection at the University of Leeds Special Collections, Mr Peter H. Liddle.
MA Art Gallery and Museum Studies student, Abigail Himan, said of the exhibition:
'We have been working as a group to create an exhibition in honour of the Centenary of WW1 using the University's Liddle Collection. The Liddle Collection is a fantastic and unique resource that contains many personal items and documents of people who lived through the First World War, revealing some very poignant, though often overlooked, perspectives on the conflict. Our exhibition addresses some of the stories that emerged out of the collection and hopes to provide a narrative of the First World War which is sensitive to the experiences of certain individuals represented within the collection. We would like to invite everyone to come and see the exhibition.'
Layla Bloom, Curator at the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, said:
‘We’ve been very impressed with the passion and dedication of the MA Art Gallery and Museum Studies students in organising and curating this display – with only several weeks to research, develop and deliver the project. The result is an inspiring and thought-provoking display that engages visitors through objects with wider centenary commemorations for the First World War on our campus.’
This exhibition opens at the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery on Monday 27 October and will run until Saturday 20 December 2014. The opening reception on Tuesday 28 October (6.00 to 7.30pm) is free and all are welcome. More information can be found here.
Images
Photographs by Lieutenant Robert. C. Perry, from Perry, Book of Signs and Wonders: Photographs of the Western Front, date unknown. With kind permission of the University of Leeds Special Collections.