War and Conflict Subject Specialist Network

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.

Visual Artist Mhairi Sutherland shares details of her artwork BASE, part of 'Mapping Monuments' project. The project and Mhairi's artist residency is an exploration of the origins of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland (1824), continuing her ongoing artistic research of the militarised landscapes of the north coast of Ireland.

Dr Lee Karen Stow presents the second photo essay in Visual Traces, a visual narrative exploring the wartime experiences of civilian, working-class women in her family and birthplace of Hull through the traces they left behind.

We Can Do Better was a takeover of Downhill House by the artist Joe Caslin in collaboration with a group of young women born after the Good Friday Agreement. Produced in Northern Ireland by the Nerve Centre, Caslin co-created the work with a group known as ‘The Kindred Collective’. The temporary, paper-based artwork stretched across the front of Downhill House and was designed in response to some of the issues affecting young people in Northern Ireland today. In this blog post, the collective explains how a nine-month process of engagement and co-creation led to a piece of work that reflected societal conflict, empowerment and change.

Commissioned by the IWM 14-18 NOW Legacy Fund in partnership with The Brickworks Museum, located in the village of Swanwick, Southampton, locusts brings together real-life testimonies from the local community about the Second World War and its aftermath within this part of England, whilst exploring the potential for individual and collective healing through processes of recollection and re-enactment. Joseph Constable shares his reflections on this powerful new film.

Part of the IWM 14-18 NOW Legacy Fund in partnership with Ulster University, 'After the Rain' was the culmination of over a years long engagement in Derry-Londonderry by the world renowned contemporary French circus troupe Compagnie XY. Rachel Melaugh, Creative Director of In Your Space Circus and producer for this project shares her reflections.

In this guest blog post, Dr Lee Karen Stow shares insights into her new project. Unfolding her maternal grandmother Olive May Bertholini’s hankies, she also unfolds her story of war and, perhaps, of love. Hidden within these squares of delicate cotton and silk, and striped gents hankies, are memories and clues to what she and others went through during the two world wars.

Part of the IWM 14-18 NOW Legacy Fund, 'Somewhere to Stay' tells the story of Anna Sokulska Forster, the artist's mother, who was deported from her family home in eastern Poland (now Ukraine) and transported to a Soviet labour camp in Arkhangelsk. This was the start of a long journey of survival and ongoing displacement that would see her travel thousands of miles, from Arkhangelsk, to Uzbekistan, Iran, Tanzania, and finally the UK.

Research has been undertaken into the story of Mabel Wulff, who born in Newport in Wales but lived for many years in Germany. In this blog post, Madeleine Resühr and Andrew Hemmings share details of Mabel's extraordinary life, which spanned the two world wars and beyond.