Terrain: Landscapes of the Great War

This project was prompted by research into the artist William Wyatt Bagshawe, who was killed in the Battle of the Somme. Archival material, including letters and sketchbooks, was shown alongside contemporary landscape photographs taken at locations where he fought and died. The project also included associations with other creative people who fought on the Western Front, including the poets Alexander Robertson, Charles Hamilton Sorley, and Wilfred Owen. The project pays homage to a lost generation of talented people, their lives cut short by the carnage of industrial-scale warfare. The landscapes explore meaning and metaphor embodied in the letters, snapshots and paintings creating a sense of narrative when shown alongside the landscape photographs. The captions I wrote to accompany the images explain the significance of the location and narrative. In the Edinburgh show, poems etched onto glass accompanied the images. From extensive research, the images of these anonymous places are energised by the knowledge that they once bore witness to the death and devastation of war. An avenue of mature trees photographed in mist takes on significance when we learn that this area was once a No Mans Land, and lines of stubble in a field appear like ranks of fallen soldiers. As the grass grew over the battlefields and crops were planted once again, nature incorporated the damage into the landscape. Time and nature softens the damage and conceals the evidence of the war. It is through the juxtaposition of William Wyatt Bagshawe's artefacts that we are prompted to reflect again on the meaning of the landscape. This approach offers an alternative reading to the conventional portrayal of warzones in which nature becomes a force for restoration