One hundred years since the end of the ‘Great War’, major new Imperial War Museum North exhibition Lest We Forget? aims to explore how the conflict has shaped society today and how remembrance can pose its own challenges. To encourage new perspectives of the concept of commemoration, installations include over 180 objects, photographs, film clips, sound pieces and documents, plus mantelpiece memorials, official tributes and even the original Joey puppet from the National Theatre production of War Horse. Ten paintings by some of the nation’s most prominent war artists such as Paul Nash, Stanley Spencer, Wyndham Lewis and John Singer Sargent will also be united – originally commissioned by the British government in 1918 for a First World War memorial gallery that was never built, the Hall of Remembrance.
A series of live events and immersive experiences will complement the exhibition, including a brand-new Big Picture Show: Mightier Than War, daily at 12pm and 2pm, featuring a specially commissioned piece by acclaimed Mancunian poet Tony Walsh. Meanwhile, on Sunday 21 October, new dance piece Contagion, from leading choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh, will tell the lesser-known story of the First World War: the deadly Spanish flu pandemic that swept the world during the conflict’s final year.
Fri 27 Jul – Sun 24 Feb 2019, IWM North, The Quays, Trafford Wharf Road, Manchester, M17 1TZ, Tel: 0161 836 4000, 10am-5pm, free, www.iwm.org.uk
- Words:
- Sarah-Clare Conlon
- Published on:
- Fri 1 Feb 2019
