Opening on Remembrance Day in 2023, artist Chila Kumari Singh Burman MBE created The Shining Lights of Service, a unique, multi-coloured light installation commemorating the Indian Hospital at the Royal Pavilion during the First World War.  It was an IWM14-18 NOW Legacy Fund commission in partnership with Brighton & Hove Museums and in collaboration with Believe in Me CIC.  

The artwork remembered the soldiers cared for in the Royal Pavilion between 1914 and 1916 when it was used as a hospital for Indian soldiers wounded in the First World War. Burman’s colourful neon sculptures drew on the spectacle of the Pavilion interiors, where Asian symbols and motifs intermingle with signs of British imperialism.

The Indian Hospital at the Royal Pavilion

At the outbreak of war in August 1914, the British Army was relatively small, and German soldiers quickly outnumbered the Allied troops. Reinforcements were brought in from Britain’s colonies across the world. The Indian Army was the largest standing army, the first to mobilise and first to arrive in France in October 1914. 

Over the course of the war, over a million Indian soldiers served in the British Indian Army. The first divisions were sent to France in response to devastating casualties in the British Expeditionary Force. The intensity of the war in the trenches of the Western Front led to huge numbers of casualties. Makeshift hospital facilities were quickly overrun with injured soldiers.

A new group of hospitals for Indian soldiers was established on the south coast of England, where patients could be transported from northern France. In December 1914 the Royal Pavilion Estate became one of three hospitals established in Brighton. 

The Royal Pavilion hospital became the most famous of the Brighton hospitals. A misleading impression was given that the Royal Pavilion was still an occupied royal palace and that George V, both King and Emperor of India, had given up the building for use by Indian soldiers. It was hoped that this would reinforce a sense of loyalty to the King-Emperor.

The commission

Chila worked with Programming staff at Brighton & Hove Museums and with social historian Dr Kiran Sahota from Believe in Me to explore the narrative of the hospital for Indian soldiers.  Motifs drawn from the opulent interiors of the Pavilion were placed side by side with Indian medical instruments, creating a frieze-like installation that celebrated Indian myths and customs whilst referencing conflict and cultural fusion. Placed in front of the Indian-inspired silhouette of the Royal Pavilion, the neon sculptures became a reflection on the surroundings in which the Indian soldiers were cared for and a sobering reminder of the wounds inflicted by the war that had brought them there.

Chila’s commission also referenced healing after the recent Covid pandemic:

“There are new neons on the Pavilion balcony: the phoenix and the tools are new, and I've reinvigorated this dragon, who is fierce, a protector. I met the phoenix on the carpet in the palace: I thought it was a peacock, a symbol of India. The Indian Ayurvedic tools are also symbols of healing. These medical instruments are elegant: not grim and hard and harsh, or something painful, but alive, like birds.

“I like to think the light is healing to people. Neons, to me, bring joy to people: they emanate fantastical colours. I started making neons during the pandemic ….. They’re like a beacon of hope and courage”.

The complex installation of the artwork required imaginative forward planning with Chila and Setworks, who manufactured her neons, and we brought forward the installation date in order to avoid high winds.  The brightness of the neons meant that the installation was left on during the day.  As the first artist’s commission to be installed on the exterior of the Royal Pavilion, The Shining Lights of Service intrigued local visitors to the Royal Pavilion Garden as well as capturing the attention of visitors from further afield. 

More details about the commission can be found on Brighton & Hove Museums’ website The Shining Lights of Service and the Indian Hospital at the Royal Pavilion - Brighton & Hove Museums (brightonmuseums.org.uk)

Nicola Coleby, Creative Programme Manager

Brighton & Hove Museums