Lest we forget: Poppies and public commemoration

At the centenary of 2014, 'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red' became the surprising star of commemorative activity. This collaborative art installation between artist Paul Cummins, Designer Tom Piper and Historic Royal Palaces comprised 888,246 ceramic poppies, planted in undulating waves in the Tower of London moat. In 2018, the Tower again became the focus of national commemoration with its sound and light installation ‘Beyond the Deepening Shadow’ with designer Tom Piper and sound artist Mira Calix. The popularity of these two installations showed that far from declining, First World War (WWI) commemoration was still intensely popular with the British public.

'Lest we forget' is an innovative project which looks beyond the spectacle of ‘Blood Swept Lands’ by utilising the installations as case studies through which some of the wider issues of WWI commemoration can be understood.

The project will utilise new methodologies from different disciplines to analyse feedback from the public which was collected as part of the installations, creating one of the largest datasets of commemorative activity available for research.

The project will also explore the ways in which people interacted with 'Blood Swept Lands' and ‘Deepening Shadow’ through different media: from volunteering to 'plant' poppies, visiting the installation, sharing photographs on social media, and depositing home-made artefacts at the Tower; to attending a nightly roll-call ceremony, or buying a ceramic poppy.

‘Blood Swept Land’ and ‘Deepening Shadow’ became media phenomena, and this project will also investigate the importance of this engagement and critique the way the project was perceived as a 'success' by the public, media and Historic Royal Palaces.

Finally, ‘Lest We Forget’ will place the installation in the context of WWI commemorations from 2014-2018, by explaining the ways in which multiple public audiences commemorated WWI more widely, and whether attitudes changed over these four years of remembrance. The research will explore what constituted the 'success' of the Tower’s commemorative events and whether this success can be replicated in future projects and programmes.

Meaning & expression: In the context of war commemoration over the last century, how can a study of Blood Swept Lands establish the ways in which the public made sense of the First World War centenary? 

Participation: How can a study of the Blood Swept Lands project inform understandings of public engagement with commemorative art installations? What influence did this public engagement have on the understanding and interpretation of the installation?

Legacy: What effect has the installation had on people’s perceptions and expectations of WWI commemoration, and can analysis of the Blood Swept Lands installation enable others to predict future engagement with commemorative programmes in heritage sites and museums?

The project team is sharing their research findings though the delivery of a number of conference papers and academic articles alongside a number of other outputs:

There will be regular blog posts about the research on the Curators’ Blog, and a podcast which will be launched in Autumn 2019. Previous posts include:

• Lest we forget: the beginnings of remembrance society
• Farewell to Beyond the Deepening Shadow
• Family means nobody gets left behind – or forgotten
• Community commemoration
• Reflections on conflict, art and remembrance

We are also delighted to be working with the Historical Association to deliver a Teacher Fellowship programme for Secondary School teachers which began in January 2019 and will finish in August 2019.

Dr Megan Gooch, Creative Producer, Historic Royal Palaces.

Eleanor OKeeffe is the Post Doctoral Research Associate. 

Advisory panel: Michael Day CVO, (formerly Chief Executive of Historic Royal Palaces), Polly Richards (Polly Richards Consulting), Dr Silke Arnold-de Simine(Birkbeck College, University of London), Dr Jenny Kidd (Cardiff University), and Dr Joanne Sayner (Newcastle University).

Follow @HRP_Learning on Twitter for more information and discussion about the project.

UKRI Gateway to Research

June 2018 – December 2019