Myself and my group have been thinking of ways we can remember those that died during the 4th Battalion and allow our audience the time to remember with us. Our idea is inspired by Jake and Dinos Chapman as they used toys to show the horror of war. We particularly took interest by their work titled “Hell” as they used thousands of toy soldiers that are “depicted carrying out genocide and torture”. This gave us an image of covering the Drill Hall Cafe in toy soldiers. We did some research into how many lives were lost in the 4th Battalion and found that 83 had died and this lead us to decide that we should paint 83 toy soldiers red. We also decided that we should do this action in silence and for 83 minutes so that we take a minute silence for each soldier that passed allowing our audience to also take the time to think about what is happening in front of them and also take the time to remember. We decided the cafe would be the perfect space to work with as it contrasts with our performance. The Drill Hall cafe is a sanitized area and is decorated in light colours and therefore is very inviting, whereas we are painting toy soldiers a dark red colour having two of us dressed in army clothes and one dressed in mourning clothes which could be disturbing for the members of the public that could witness what is taking place. The Drill Hall cafe also has a plaque in the middle of the cafe with some of the names of the soldiers that passed but is shown in a formal and “nice” way whereas our group want to show what really happened in the war similar to what Jake and Dinos achieved with their artwork.
© 2015 Cherie Jones
