Masters Panel Designs
- Francisco Gazitua – Chile
- Ambrose Burne – UK
- Philip Vercammen – Belgium
- Achim Kuhn – Germany
- Alexander Sushnikov – Russia
- Benjamin Kjellman-Chapin – Norway
- Egor Bavykin – Russia
- Paolo Bettoni – Italy
- James Makely – USA
- Jeffrey Funk – USA
- Ondrej Gela – Czech Republic
- Patrick Pelgroms – Belgium
- Paul Mikula – South Africa
- Peter De Beus – Belgium
- Roberto Giordani – Italy
- Sandra Dunn – Canada
- Shona Johnson – Scotland
- Steven Laurijs – Netherlands
- Takayoshi Komine – Japan
- Vladimir Sokhonovich – Russia
- Will Maguire – Australia
- Ivan Kadochnikov – Russia
- Kheir Aker – Palestine
- Mr Ming Dong Feng – China
Jacob Haggarty – UK
For my panel design, I wanted to try to do something different. In 1914 the first bombs fell on Ypres, and the city had put in place plans to rebuild from as early as 1915. Today the city of Ypres, or Ieper as it’s known in Flemish, has been carefully reconstructed to the way it was pre-war. This amazing recovery is an achievement that I wanted to honour in the design for the panel, which depicts a birds-eye-view image of Ypres in 1918, constructed from multiple plates of flat steel section. The intention behind this is that the plates of steel are representative of the bricks used to reconstruct the remains of the city, and carry strong connotations of rebuilding and recovering when coupled with the aerial image of Ypres 1918, which was almost completely leveled by bombing and skirmishing. In this sense, the rebuilding process is made the feature of the design, but the sombre imagery of the damage done by the war is paid respect to as well.
The image will be put into the steel plates by using various chisel marks, ball punches, and heavy to light fullering to represent the scarred terrain, craters, and churned earth of war-time Ypres. The same design will be featured on both sides, meaning that two copies of each plate will need to be made. Each brick will be made of 40mm or 30mm by 10mm flat stock, and will have a 10mm hole drilled through the centre, which is then counter sunk to approximately 15mm. This allows for a rivet to sit flush with the surface of the plate and so can be disguised effectively as the detail of the map section the plate corresponds to.
The plates are connected to the frame by lengths of 200mm round or octagonal section with slit and drifted 10mm holes at regular intervals, to allow for riveting the plate on.
Thank you for considering my design, I’m hugely looking forward to the Ypres event later this year!
Francisco Gazitua – Chile
The falling pen pays homage to the young writers and poets who died in the First World War, the only war to be characterised by ’war poets’ – Rupert Brooke, Robert Graves, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Edward Thomas and others. The feather is the quill pen. Its message, in the words of Edward Bulmer-Lytton, is “ the pen is mightier than the sword”.
In Spanish the word ‘pluma’ means both ‘pen’ and ‘feather’. There is a saying, ‘Birds and poets drop the pluma only when they die”. This is like saying that blacksmiths abandon the hammer only when they are dead.
Ambrose Burne – UK
When approaching this brief one of the primary considerations I had was the site’s visitors. That Ypres is a place of remembrance for people from many nations – I wanted to design a panel that didn’t allude to the British, but addressed all those involved in this devastating conflict; irrespective of ‘side’.
I began by looking at the Western Front, the main arena of the conflict. It surprised me how little movement there was along this line during the 4 years of war, this seemed to succinctly illustrate the futility of this particular conflict and war in general.
I also considered the role of the blacksmith in this situation, the producer of tools that enabled the digging of the trenches that created the physical landscape particular to this war. I chose forged picks that would have been standard issue to troops on both sides of the conflict that would have been used as trenching and tunnelling tools.
By threading the forged pick-heads on to round bar I wish also to allude to barbed wire. Barbed wire was developed in the 19th century for enclosing livestock, but was soon adopted as a military barricade; the deployment of barbed wire escalated during WW1 and has become one of the most potent symbols of the inhumanity of the war. ‘By 1918 millions of miles of barbed wire had been strung through Flanders alone – enough to circle the world 40 times’. (Militaryhistorynow.com) The use of barbed wire was one of the main reasons that this war stood in stalemate for so long.
In this design, the pick-head barbed wire will be formed to represent the western front, with the pick-heads placed to denote the major offensives. The line is also similar to a stitched wound and I hope will evoke the scar that the Great War left in human consciousness.
To either side of the line will be a continuous surface made from riveting together metal poppies; a mass made from a great number of individual elements. This will create a textured surface akin to a pitted/cratered battlefield whilst alluding to the subsequent poppy fields.
My ultimate aim is to address the gravity and barbarity of this conflict whilst in respectful remembrance of those who gave themselves to the war; and that through our remembrance we may both heal and strive for peace.
Philip Vercammen – Belgium
The subject of this panel are the 3 fates. They occur not only in Greek but also in other mythologies.
It is clear that ‘fate’ was a word often used during wartime, often to dim the real meaning of war (terrible, staggering, pointless….). In war, the 3 fates had too much work;spinning threads and cutting them of, …to short…
The Moirai (Greek)
In Greek mythology, the Moirai or Moerae, often known in English as the Fates, were the incarnations of destiny; their Roman equivalent was the Parcae (euphemistically the “sparing ones”). Their number became fixed at three: Clotho (spinner), Lachesis (alotter) and Atropos (unturnable).
They controlled the mother thread of lifestyle of every mortal from birth to death. They were independent, at the helm of necessity, directed fate, and watched that the fate assigned to every being by eternal laws might take its course without obstruction. The gods and men had to submit to them, although Zeus’s relationship with them is a matter of debate: some sources say he is the only one who can command them (the Zeus Moiragetes), yet others suggest he was also bound to the Moirai’s dictates. In the Homeric poems Moira or Aisa, is related with the limit and end of life, and Zeus appears as the guider of destiny. In the Theogony of Hesoid, the three Moirai are personified, and are acting over the gods. Later they are daughters of Zeus and Themis, who was the embodiment of divine order and law. In Plato’s Republic the Three Fates are daughters of Ananke (necessity).
In the Republic o Plato, the three Moirai sing in unison with the music of the Seirenes. Lachesis sings the things that were, Clotho the things that are, and Atropos the things that are to be. Pindar in his Hymn to the Fates, holds them in high honour. He calls them to send their sisters Hours, Eunomia (Lawfulness), Dike (Right), and Eirene (Peace), to stop the internal civil strife (=war).
The Norns (Norwegian), the three most important norns, Urðr (Wyrd), Verðandi and Skuld, come out from a hall standing at the Well of Urðr (well of fate).
Achim Kuhn – Germany
- Two parts as shrapnel fragments: steel sheet 8 mm, forged, partially compressed edge, partially burned.
Scripture hammered on both sides.
Some cracks cleaved.
Fixation to the frame with 3 brackets. - Hand: steel sheet 8 mm, split, by forging deformed;
fixed to the handrail with brackets. - 5 pieces handrails (hand with globe): 2 mm steel wire
- Globe: sheet steel 6 mm, continents individually forged
and deformed. Inside hold together by a holding system.
Alexander Sushnikov – Russia
My name is Alexander Sushnikov, I’m a blacksmith from St. Petersburg, Russia. To enter the contest I prepared the sketches on the theme of the First World War. On the panel depicts the falling soldier, seized by the throat with both hands during a gas attack. In the background there are in the range of a rifle with a soldier’s helmet on them. They symbolize a hastily erected graves of soldiers. Only their rifles and helmets – all what was left of them. I think to make clear figure of a soldier silhouette. A soldier loses his life and his life is leaving his body. Abstract silhouette of a soldier surrounded by a mass that can be seen as a toxic gas, or the forces of evil. The whole composition is dedicated to the victims of the First World War.
Benjamin Kjellman-Chapin – Norway
The effects of war linger long after the final hail of bullets. For the soldiers along the Western Front during WWI, those aftereffects included a disproportionately high rate of devastating facial injuries, courtesy of the combination of trench warfare, which protected bodies whilst leaving heads vulnerable, and the use of large caliber artillery. Twisted metal shards rent faces asunder—noses torn off, eyes blasted to oblivion, jaws sheared off, gaping holes left in their place.
The mangled patchwork of flesh and bone held together by scar tissue robbed these men of their humanity—they shunned the public, even their families, lest their distorted, blasted faces frighten and repulse. Mirrors were banned from the hospital wards, as the men could not bear to face their own mutilated countenances. For these soldiers, the so-called “Tin Noses Shop,” or the Masks for Facial Disfigurement Department, offered a glimmer of hope. Started by sculptor Francis Derwent Wood, the “Tin Noses Shop” provided a semblance of reparation in the form of metal prostheses. These metal masks could hide what one newspaper writer in 1918 termed “the dreadful abyss” of facial disfigurement.
Fragmentary portraits were created to hide the ravaged, fragmented self, not to render the soldier’s wounds invisible, but to render them acceptably visible. The “tin noses” were therefore restorative, a kind of redemptive prosthesis, concealing at once the grim realities of facial trauma and the horrors of trench warfare, and hiding the abject behind a thin veneer of metal in the form of a surrogate face.
It is this confluence of medical and artistic response to wartime trauma that this panel takes as its point of departure. The proposed panel would have four figures with simplified bodies, arranged frontally. The disproportionately large heads are intended to call attention to the mutilated faces; the elongated hands hold the “tin noses,” which only partially cover the damaged countenances. The sameness of the figures is deliberate, intended to evoke the tens of thousands whose features were ravaged by shrapnel, whilst their differences symbolizes the individuality of both the soldiers and the surrogate faces crafted for them.
Egor Bavykin – Russia
Life is going on as always. Nothing can stop it. On the ruin of people’s lives, suffering, sorrow & pain, life itself finds its way to be, the way of joy.
Three main battles in Ypres during the war – three main metal interconnections in this panel. Within the emptiness of the centre, the emptiness of the city, which was completely destroyed, the new flower of life is growing.
Paolo Bettoni – Italy
The mountain represents, from time out of mind, the strength of human nature from both sides: good and bad. And during the WWI the Alpi (Alps), where the Italian army fought against the Austro-Hungarian and German Army, played an important role in, making in many cases the difference between the life and death of men. Our panel tells a story about this strong connection between Italian people and the mountains during WWI.
UPPER PART – Description
In particular the upper part tries to represent the challenge between the soldiers and the environment of the mountains through a well known exploit of the Italian Mountain Troops: the Alpini (The White Soldiers).
The first part of war was fought on the highest peaks of the Alpi because both the armies (Italians and Austro-Germans) believed that, only by the control of these peaks can they win: it is called the “White War”. So the troops, and in particular Alpini (trained to fight on the mountains), fought and lived on this peaks in a very severe environment (glaciers, steep slopes, snow, high winds, freezing temperatures…).
In 1916, to control the top of the Adamello Mountain and to prevent the passage of the Vernecolo Pass that could bring Austrian troops into the Camonica Valley, the Italian army decides to put on the Croce Peak (3315 m.a.s.l) a big 149mm Cannon.
To get this big artillery piece, which weights 2 tons, on to the peak, the only way possible was to drag it by sleds. The carriage started on the 9th of February from Temu (1140 m.a.s.l.) and took 40 days and 300 men (Alpini and Artillery Soldiers). In fact the absence of roads and the great amount of snow made it impossible to use animals or trucks.
For his enormous weight, and his provenience from the Africa Campaign of 1912, the gun was named “The Hyppo”. The soldiers had to drag it during the night or when there is fog to avoid being shot by the Austro-German troops.
So the bringing of the Hyppo on to the top of the peak was not a fight against an enemy but a fight against the mountain elements, the snow, the cold weather, the avalanches, the enormous declivity of this mountain. And the only weapon that the soldiers had against these natural enemies was their willpower: no knifes, no rifles could protect them from the harsh environment that claimed the lives of many soldiers.
LOWER PART – Description
This part represents the opposite side of the concept. The win by nature over men and the cruelty of war.
After the WWI the trenches and battlefields on the mountains where left by the armies. Many of the woods present before the war were left completely destroyed and a great amount of arms, helmets and army equipment was also left there (The Hyppo is still there today, a war relic on the top of Croce Peak that has become a lasting memorial to the Alpini and all mountain soldiers).
The war completely modified the landscape, but the strength of nature is the powerful force on the universe, more powerful than bombs or cannons and after 100 years from the WWI the mountain have conquered again the trenches and battlefields. The rifles and helmets were transformed in rust and where there was a trench, today there is a beautiful wood.
The message for future generations is that life always wins against the death and violence.
James Makely – USA
A largely unspoken truth of the Great War was the importance of the shovel. This humble implement should have become an iconic image following the war. Rather, its impact on the lives of those who lived during those momentous years has largely been forgotten.
Any thought of the war brings to mind visions of trenches. Should not the shovel also appear in the vision? Without the shovel, how else could the trenches have appeared? How many shovels were employed to bury those who fell between the trenches? Amongst those who were accused of desertion, how many were executed at a post set into the ground with the aid of a shovel?1 Roads were repaired or built by men wielding shovels. Devastated architecture was cleared away with its assistance. They were so indispensable that soldiers would carry them upon their backs to the front line.
Attempting to increase this implements uses, the Canadian military designed a line of shovels to double as a shield,2 including a cut-out for firing a rifle through. However, the shovel is neither shield, nor sword, nor plowshare, but rather an instrument that bridges the space in between. Today, shovels are being wielded once again, only now they are carried by teams of archaeologists who are recovering evidence of events in the trenches.3 The shovel is now helping to keep details of the past from being forgotten.
My proposal for Ypres 2016 Cenotaph Design Competition is a gathering of forms shaped as shovels. Inspired by examples form different countries, and dominating the space solely, these shovels of hammered steel will invite visitors to the cenotaph to contemplate the many ways in which the shovel or spade, was vital. How, in the lives of all, from soldier to farmer, this truly was an indispensable tool. The viewer is faced with the question: to what purposes were all those shovels employed?
Each form shall be forged from a single steel bar. Some shall have added items such as rivets and cross bar handles. Individual forms will be riveted to their neighbors, forming a sold panel. This panel will be secured to rails via tenons. This design can be accomplished within the allotted 120 hours.
1. Hochschild, Adam. To End All Wars. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2011. Eyewitness account of Private Albert Rochester.
2. The McAdam Shield Shovel, Patent dated 25 August 1914.
3. www.telegraph.co.uk/world-war-one/11216997/In-Flanders-fileds-the-largest-ever-WW1-excavation.html
Jeffrey Funk – USA
The conception and design of a war memorial is a tremendously important and sensitive undertaking. Especially one like this that concerns a war for which no one alive has memories. In the wake of the horrors of World War I it was referred to as “The Great War” and “The War to End All Wars”. Neither are remotely true. WWI was an excruciatingly terrible event in a greater pattern of war making in civilization. While the style and scale of war varies, the most consistent underlying truth of the matter is that they all demonstrate a failure of society resulting in unthinkable horror, violence, and death. WWI provides a particularly good example of how irrationally war can be triggered, how tremendously destructive the ambitions of men can be, and how cruel the results are for everyone involved.
The memorial project for Ypres 2016 will involve many elements, and include the perspectives of numerous contributors. It’s success will rely on diversity. Each panel will stand both independently and in relation to all others. Together they will form a conversation more than a unified statement, which is appropriate since this war, as any war, was exceedingly complex. My design emerged with these considerations in mind.
I will admit that I had not devoted much study to WWI until this project catalyzed my interest. I approached it by reading history to begin with, followed by studying a very large number of photographs: the rubble remains of Ypres itself, the trenches of the Western Front, the terrors of naval warfare, the surreal battles in the air, and much more. For me personally, beyond the examples of heroism, of just victories, and the tremendous joining of people in the effort, the single most compelling reality of WWI was the unimaginable slaughter involved. Not just of the millions of combatants and civilians, but also of the forests, fields, and rivers themselves. The utter and complete destruction of life in the war zones must be remembered, as a graphic warning if only to slightly tip the precarious balance of the world in favor of peace for the future.
And so it is the trenches and no-mans-land that is the subject of my panel design. The limitations of both the panel framework and especially the short two days allotted for execution of the work are quite real. My object is, within these limitations and that of the material itself to provide a small glimpse into the reality of war. Un-romantic. Ugly. Not virtuosic in either craft or composition. Just a small poem on the senseless tangle of death.
This is not the only thing to remember in this or any war, but I do believe it is something that absolutely must not be forgotten.
I’ve endeavored to illustrate my design well enough for it to be understood at this point. I’ve included a few photographs of a full scale example of the barbed “wire” that is an important part of the imagery. Since several months remain before the actual event, I expect to modify the design as feelings about both the war and the forging event evolve.
Ondrej Gela – Czech Republic
My proposal of panel of railing Cenotaph is a memory of past,urgent mission of present, and a question, what awaits us in future? In the lower part of the panel, there are barbed wires, symbol of trench warfare, oppression and suffering. Basic motive of my proposal are the hands… Hands that rule objects. A spirit that leads hands!!! That’s all it’s worth! Divine trinity, a triangle, which is formed by arms. The center of everything is poppy head. This fact is a reason for celebrations and a honour to those, who preserved it blameless in times of danger, full of grains for future generations. What emerges from these seeds? It’s up to us!
Patrick Pelgroms – Belgium
I’m from Belgium, Flanders fields. I should know the stories about the battlefields. The thing is that the veterans never told us a thing about it, the stories weren’t told.
So I looked at the internet!
What I’ve found is trench feet, shock shell. You’ve to look it up on youtube “shock shell”.
Friends corpses, eaten by rats. I couldn’t find a decent expression!
We civilians were liberated.
But the soldiers who are liberated are those who had a sudden death.
Still children have to pass the panel and have to learn something about history.
A grenade named shrapnel, explode in the air.
A cloud of lead balls was coming down “shooting rabbits”
My design, called “Liberated”.
Will be a panel that children can pass and not be speechless.
Stories can be told on a decent way.
The hand in the panel will be cast in bronze, “The hand of God”.
The bronze, comes from a museum. Old detonators from “Flanders fields” shrapnel detonators. I want to recast them. (totally save)
One of my former students of the Royal Academy will make the shape of the hand, he’s really an artist about it. The hand will explode, one beam will pierce the soldier his the chest. The soldier, is hiding in the corner of the panel. Covering his face and identity. Waiting to be “Liberated”. Hopeless !
Paul Mikula – South Africa
Here follows my proposal to make a panel for the Ypres event. This is for the master class:
The design shows a springbok head in a field of upright spears which are framed in a wreath of smaller spearheads above a simple AFRICA font. The springbok as well as the spears are currently alive and still in use – but appear abstract and skeletal in style. A way of being historical, contemporary and perhaps visionary.
The design incorporates the South African legion insignia of the springbok head (forged from 1911 light wagon axle)
The wreaths surrounding to be forged as spear blades to honour our black comrades on both sides who were issued with spears.
The upright spears are to remember the other Africans who fought with and against Imperial Germany. The spear is a continental symbol any soldier would recognise.
The springbok (antelope) is not only a South African (the main fighting force of the continent) symbol but occurs throughout Africa and is instantly recognisable as “ours”.
I firmly believe the iron holds history and context and try to forge my sculptures with material that holds a spirit in its core. The springbok to be forged from 1911 English light wagon axle (see picture) that is stamped “W. GILPIN AXLE 1911”. This type of wagon would have been used as logistic and ambulance transport.
The font simply says AFRICA, which I think is enough.
As an African Blacksmith with 25 years experience, ex-soldier and someone who lost his great-grandfather in the war, I believe I can give a valuable contribution with my piece.
Peter De Beus – Belgium
May of the war monuments depict the heroic aspect of battle (I did some work on monuments of 1815, the battle of Waterloo). Others focus on patriotic feelings. Even the Poppy of “In Flanders Fields” poem is a call for patriotism and new soldiers for the battlefield. Few monuments show the consequences of war as do “The grieving Parents” of Kate Kollwitz.
A lot of information became available the last two years. Our national television ran several documentaries on the Great War. Some documentaries even showed footage from before and during the war.
I saw images of Russian soldiers who got artificial limbs fitted on. Another film showed a museum of these objects. As a result I got interested by artificial limbs.
World War I was totally different from previous wars. New weapons caused injuries on a massive scale. Good disinfectants were scarce and antibiotics yet had to be invented. So many injured faced the choice between death from infection or losing a limb.
In trying to depict the horror and consequence of the loss of a limb, my search ended behind a field hospital at the “end” of a hard day’s work. I would work on a heap of amputated limbs to be disposed of. The shape for an amputated leg was easily found. But putting it together into the frame was difficult. As I wanted it to be ambivalent so that you might discover your own link with war within the work.
Material:
Flat bars of 30/10; 35/10; 50/10 an 60/10 mm
Round stock of 12 and 14 mm.
Roberto Giordani – Italy
Dog Tags
The panel consists of identifying platelets also used during the First World War Which ironically called dog tags.
Platelets military used to identify the dead bodies of the soldiers, it’s there is written the name, surname, District of belonging and serial number, the various armies of different countries were using different forms.
Dog Tags are located in the panel, have names unreadable, you can only read a few letters and numbers,it’s do not say the his identy, but they want to talk about their history, it is the memory that each one of them belonged to a person who has lost his life.
Tie together the various forms, because all died for the same cause the stupid war.
Material:
Iron sheet 10 mm plasma cutting, holes and joints by forging, assembly supports with rivets (red dots)
Sandra Dunn – Canada
It’s about the soldiers buried in the mud; it’s about Canadian soldiers imagining home – wheat fields, gardens, crops and landscape stretching out in the distance. It’s the trenches and barbed wire and sandbags and it’s those who died who are rising to the top in plant form – as though they are seeds for a future hope. The flower tops are dog tags – soldier identification tags which would normally have name, date of birth and religion stamped into it. But these ones will have short descriptions taken from actual letters about soldiers during the war: fathers, sons, lovers and brothers.
Shona Johnson – Scotland
The Finnegan Brothers, Thoughts of Home
My Granddad, Jimmy Finnegan volunteered in 1914 when he was 17 years old leaving his blacksmithing apprenticeship to join the Royal Irish Rifles. While serving on the front line, as a sniper, he got word that his brother, Jonny Finnegan, was billeted nearby. The two brothers managed to send messages to each other and arranged a time and place to meet on the reserve line. Both borrowed bicycles and remarkably meet up and spent a short precious time together before returning to their regiments and the job of war. The brothers would not meet again until several years later, at the end of the war, home in their beloved Edinburgh. Jonny returning from fighting on the front line & Jimmy liberated from a German prisoner of war camp.
I wanted to capture the essence of the brothers rendezvous, caught between the harsh reality of the war, death, despair and the ravaged landscape and their thoughts and chat of cherished family and friends many miles away back home in Edinburgh. The stunted trees represent the war torn landscape with the brothers greeting each other towards the centre of the panel and memories of home symbolized by crow-stepped gabled houses and the tall tenement buildings of Edinburgh, home to the Finnegan family.
Steven Laurijs – Netherlands
The panel is divided into two sections by a 14mm rod representing the frontline of November 1914. On the left-hand side the panel shows the three allied forces represented by three staves. The staves hold the first notes of each national anthem. The individual lines of a particular stave visualize the movement and involvement of the armies or divisions of the corresponding allied during the battle. The same explanation applies to the right side of the panel where the German national anthem is projected. The German stave is slightly bigger indicating the aggressor. Also the individual lines of the German stave hamshackle the frontline rod (again visualizing the act of aggression) whereas the defending allied lines are upsetted were meeting the frontline indicating a defensive action.
The Theme: A False Note
Looking to the first notes of each anthem everything looks organised, prepared and disciplined. The further we move along the staves that follow the lines of the various strategic moves the notes show more chaotic and disordered emphasizing the generic feeling of disarray fatigue and distress in wartime. As each national anthem represents its nation the above feelings apply to the entire nation.
Who composes wars?
There is a nice German saying:
Wir kämpfen nicht für Vaterland Und nicht für lands Ehre
Wir sterben für den Unverstand Und für die Millionäre.
We do not fight for our country or countries honour
we die for foolishness and the Millionaire
Takayoshi Komine – Japan
All the people who passed away with this background at the time of the first World War, a woman, a male, a soldier, a child, parents, a brother, a sister, a sweetheart, a husband, a wife, etc.
And by this battle, also mentally and physically I get damaged and we will offer an earnest prayer now to all the oppressed people.
“Work explanation”.
A main form expresses a prayer for the form of joining the palms together with which I united both hands.
Getting to know an empty dream, they search for perfect peace and people offer a prayer.
In when does people’s wish suit?
Vladimir Sokhonovich – Russia
The design of the panel is to draw attention to both the tragedy and the futility of war. The paired ovals within the frame, pirced by forged spikes, symbolises the crown of thorns used to torture Christ before his crucifixion. The sword at the centre is a symbol for the war and, being knotted it expresses the futility of conflict. The overall message is that great sacrifices continue to be made and conflict is ultimately contained.
Will Maguire – Australia
Human Tangle
The initial design was sparked by seeing examples of WW1 caltrops in the national war memorial in Canberra. These primitive yet but barbaric devices were used to lame horses and later pneumatic tyred vehicles and are still used today.
These devices have no top or bottom and are designed to always fall point up. After developing them further, a tangled web emerges of human forms pushing and pulling, dancing and struggling, trapped in a tangle of themselves. Just a change of perspective can turn a figure around and change it materially.
This human tangle felt like an apt portrayal of a confusing complicated war. A war full of power games and political string pulling, yet at its core were simple human struggles. The straining to define right from wrong, progression from regression or the primal fight to determine one’s own fate.
Ivan Kadochnikov – Russia
My project consists of metallic elements with two types of surface. The sheet with the surface of an old steel has a profound relief from rust, brutal rivets. This part of the composition refers to the time of the First World War.
The other surface is brass or stainless steel – polished. Its value – constructive world after the war. The destructive element indicating a structurally bearing element having a value of the creative world. I wanted to express the idea of growing our world and life in general of the events of that time.
Kheir Aker – Palestine
The other face of war ….. I thought that was pretty much how our world without wars… The right of all to live in peace … the right of all to enjoy the time allotted to us and the purpose of art and industry can better life for all of us to pre beautiful… and I thought For a moment how poverty and killing an ugly thing… and some poor and some deaths were not orphans and if there was no war… and I send flowers instead of missiles dove Economy and Industry instead of killing people who have the same right as we do to live in peace.
Ivan Kadochnikov – Russia
My project consists of metallic elements with two types of surface. The sheet with the surface of an old steel has a profound relief from rust, brutal rivets. This part of the composition refers to the time of the First World War.
The other surface is brass or stainless steel – polished. Its value – constructive world after the war. The destructive element indicating a structurally bearing element having a value of the creative world. I wanted to express the idea of growing our world and life in general of the events of that time.
Mr Ming Dong Feng – China
The design shows clearly how the Chinese labourers worked in the first world war, transporting food, ammunition and other goods to the front line. They were also responsible for the enormous task of clearing rubble and helping to rebuild European cities after the war ended. There is also a flower tree which is called “Mei Hua tree” upper left corner. It is nothing with the first world war but as it is the National flower in China, so people would also like to show it.
