Remembrance Art Trail

Beautiful art trail around Canary Wharf by Mark Humphrey to mark Remembrance weekend.

It consisted of seven sculptural installations around the site. Each one was dedicated to a different a charity set up to help x-service men. I suspect at peak times each was manned by a representative of the charities but I went mid-morning on a weekday and only one was represented. However each had a security man attached to it who were really enthusiastic and informative.

My favourite piece was “Lost Soldiers” over by the new Crossrail station which had helmets on poles from different campaigns with the name of the campaign on the pole. All the helmets were contemporary with the campaign. The remains of a Battle of the Somme helmet were very poignant. This was a simple but effective idea.

Another clever one  was “Point of Everyman’s Land” in the Jubilee Place shopping centre which consisted of Perspex cubes with different types of ground in the bottom and a poppy shape made by stringing thick red and black strong between holes in the outside of the cube. These were beautiful and again so simple.

I also liked “Brother in Arms” in Cabot Square. This was a figure of a soldier like a classic First World War memorial but surrounded by the parts that made him up displayed in a frame like an Airfix toy kit.

This trail was such a good idea and sorry I have not written it up in time for you to go however I will look out for more works by Humphrey as I liked his simple but moving approach.

Closed 13 November 2016.

Review
Evening Standard

 

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