Age UK: Historic Wartime

The latest brief was a choice between two collaborations- one of which was with Age UK, which I undertook. This provided another choice, between either the topic of local buildings or wartime history. As the latter subject greatly interests me personally, I selected this option. The aim of Age UK was to gather a series of images reflecting the memories of elderly sufferers of Dementia, relating to Stockport during WW2. This particular brief appealed to me strongly, for I feel it's important to preserve history and the memories of those that experienced it. In order to do this, we were to visit a care centre and talk with someone about their experiences.

During the visit, I spoke with a 95-year-old lady called Enid; the conversation was pleasant and insightful. She was happy to talk about all aspects of her wartime experience in Stockport, and that of her husband, who served in the army in Italy. She started things off by discussing the air raids orchestrated by the German Luftwaffe, describing how "the planes used to come right over the house", but "you got used to it". The subjects ranged from this to discussing the now-iconic 'Keep Calm and Carry On' posters, and how propaganda like this "seemed good then, didn't it? now it seems absolutely corny!". From our discussions, I wrote down quotes and details, in order to produce drawings from them. The following are a few of my quick water-coloured sketches based off of Enid's recollections:

Enid described how vividly she could remember carrying her gas mask with her everywhere.

In reference to her husband serving in Italy: "They gave him a heavy motorbike which he couldn't control"

She described how he took care of a young, injured and scared American soldier he came by.

"Thoughts of Hitler were frightening, and Goerring... ugh"

"the planes used to come right over the house"

After a few of these sketched images, I had to narrow my focus to one idea with which to continue. As the focus was on wartime Stockport in particular, I decided to run with the gas mask idea- this was a universal experience for all British civilians during the war, and therefore something that all those who lived through it could relate to. I decided I could combine the image of a girl and a gas mask with a location iconic to Stockport, such as the Town Hall. 

I decided that the image could be more dynamic than just a straightforward drawing of a woman wearing a mask, so I tried this idea, which could then be combined with whatever background. I had previously attempted this configuration with the Town Hall as a backdrop, though this proved too complex .

My alternative choice was the familiar silhouette of Stockport's Viaduct- the largest brick structure in Europe at the time of construction. I placed the two drawings together in Photoshop.

The original intention was to use colour as with the preliminary water-colours, though I decided a black and white look would benefit the context. I liked the period photo aesthetic, which also gives the ghostly-feel of a distant memory. I further explored this quality by experimenting with the opacity of the different elements:

I felt the translucent foreground figure was evocative of the transient nature of a person's memories, in contrast to the relatively enduring physical locations in which they took place. This theme was particularly inspired by the poignant and captivating works of Russian photographer Sergei Larenkov, combining past with present:

http://sergey-larenkov.livejournal.com/

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I found this project to be very interesting and rewarding, having had a wealth of ideas with which to work with, thanks to Enid. In fact, the most challenging aspect of the brief was probably selecting just one final idea to run with, since there were various interesting anecdotes, each with great qualities of their own. My main critique from both peers and tutors during the project was the lack of a feature grounding my images in Stockport, which was significant, and so I steered my image in this direction at the end. The project was unique in it's social value, and a very much worthwhile cause that I am glad to have been a part of. 

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On the subject of preserving history and memory, last summer I drew this image as a 90th Birthday gift to my neighbour, who was a training RAF serviceman during WW2. The plane is an Avro Anson, the aircraft in which he frequently flew.