"Thank You For A Beautiful Life."
Community Engagement
Recovering The Past raises the profile of a deeply-debilitating experience shared by millions of people, over many generations the world over.
The exhibition routinely prompts its visitors into testifying how human-conflict has impacted theirs or their ancestors lives. Through engagement with the work, their thoughts and experiences are revealed.
In addition, the exhibition’s focus on bomb-disposal work – and even the philosophy behind project’s photography itself – have all been the subject of external publications.
The broad and overwhelmingly positive response to the exhibition’s message is evidence of the project’s success. Community engagement brings inclusion into the project. New, creative ideas to further extend visitor engagement will be part of future displays of Recovering The Past.
Front cover treatment from the Journal of Conventional Weapons Destruction!
Recognition in an International Journal
It isn’t every day that a prestigious international journal features an image from Recovering The Past on its cover!
Located at the James Madison University, and produced by the Centre for International Stabilisation & Recovery, The Journal of Conventional Weapons Destruction is a professional trade journal focused on the humanitarian mine action and chemical weapons destruction community.
In 2017, artist Ian Alderman was approached by the journal, seeking to publish an article about Recovering The Past. With the peer-review process completed, the feature went to print in the journal’s November 2017 edition.
Unexploded ammunition is a lethal, and perpetual curse of communities across the globe. In 2009, a UNICEF report stated that 15,000 – 20,000 people are killed or maimed by landmines every year.
In Belgium’s Flanders region, approximately 200 tonnes of unexploded artillery shells are recovered each year. The contemporary images of Recovering The Past reveal this barely believable but century-old legacy, which confronts the DOVO-SEDEE bomb-disposal team on a daily basis.
Courtesy of The Journal of Conventional Weapons Destruction’s feature, Recovering The Past has attained a level of credibility achievable only through the support of an internationally renowned publication.
The poignant words from a visitor to Recovering The Past; this mother’s father was a Vietnamese soldier who suffered long-term mental health issues from his service in the Vietnam War.
A Message To Our Ancestors
Many visitors to Recovering The Past have told us how the exhibition represents the experience of themselves or someone they know. From more recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, to Vietnam and the Second World War, even testimony from a now elderly children of a First World War veterans, people are keen to share their stories of how war affected their family.
In responding to this, visitors to the exhibition are provided with an opportunity to make a dedication their friends or family member impacted by war. Recorded on reproductions of blank, vintage postcards, the visitors often poignant words, reveal thought-provoking testimony.
In the card below, a mother has used the opportunity to pen a message to her son who is serving overseas at the time of her writing. Her use of the card using the current tense reminds us that the risk from war is ever present.
The opportunity to write a simple message on a vintage styled card, provides us with an invaluable resource with which to engage with our visitors.
Dr Giovanna Di Mauro: Aftermath Photography
In 2022, Recovering The Past became the subject of a fascinating article by Dr Giovanna Di Mauro.
Amongst the many points Dr Di Mauro makes, is that through its focus on the effects of war, Recovering The Past can be considered ‘aftermath photography’. This makes for a compelling observation of the exhibition’s imagery.
Through its multi-layered analysis of the project, Di Mauro’s article extends far beyond its images alone. I’ll leave it to Di Mauro herself to explain her article’s conclusion:
Recovering The Past plays with opposing concepts, such as visible/invisible, absence/presence, said/unsaid, creating new ways of perceiving and remembering the First World War.
You can read the article in-full, here.
Out of Art Comes A Poem
In 2017, Daniel Packham was one of the 40,000 people who viewed Recovering The Past at the In Flanders Fields Museum, Ypres. Daniel later contacted artist Ian Alderman to explain how the work had inspired him to put pen to paper, and from it, a poem was born!
It’s just so inspiring to see how Recovering The Past has become the catalyst and source of creative inspiration for its visitors. We love Daniel’s poem, and, in his use of the Great War as a poetic base, that his effort it might even raise an affirmative smile of approval from Owen and Sassoon. Thanks for your clever support for the exhibition Daniel!
What Our Visitors Think Matters!
More than 200,000 people have been to a display of Recovering The Past. It’s a stunning and unexpected result, and one which routinely drops our jaws to the floor!
“The most harrowing, touching explanation of what war does that I think I’ve ever viewed. It brought tears to my eyes & shivers down my spine. Just fantastic.”
But what do these people think of the work? Where does it take them at both artistic and emotional levels? Visitor feedback has tremendous value. Not only does it provide a precious insight into how the work is perceived, its content has contributed strongly to the ongoing development of the exhibition.
Recovering The Past exists as a statement of the artist’s own belief, all too often reflected in the feedback its viewers. Revealed through their feedback, the exhibition’s visitors will often reveal examples of post-conflict trauma endured by themselves, their family, or someone they know.
We’ve gathered many hundreds of individual items of feedback from our visitors. Click here for the dedicated visitor feedback page, but as a small teaser, a few examples below!
