In spring 2021, Northern Ireland Screen’s Digital Film Archive commissioned six artists from Seacourt Print Workshop in Bangor to make a creative response to With Heart and Hand, a UTV programme made in 1966 to commemorate the Battle of the Somme. For the programme, UTV recorded interviews with veterans who recalled their experiences in that famous battle, and throughout WW1. The footage also captures poignant stories from the home front during that time.
During the project, the artists viewed and discussed the footage and shared their thoughts and ideas with each other and they drew inspiration from this process for their own work.
The partnership project has resulted in a series of prints, where each of the artists has interpreted the rich source material in their own unique way.
My response was in reaction to the German Soldier’s recollection of that fateful day 1st July 1916. I created a book to show his testimony of how that day unfolded. He described the peacefulness of a beautiful early morning, the piercing summer blue sky, the sound of the leaves and bird song amongst the trees in Thiepval woods.
A triptych in response to an interview of a WW1 machine gunner with the Ulster Division at the Battle of the Somme, July 1916.
The work, Dark Echo, was produced as a response to the film footage viewed and inspiration was taken from the conversations across all ten clips.
In the nineteen sixty six anniversary of the Somme battle, interviews were mainly of Ulster veterans from the First World War. The lack of empathy shown by the interviewer in his questioning was stark.
Towards a Yellow Sky is a multi-layered screen print incorporating expressive mark-making, digital manipulation techniques, abstract code and conceptualised colour fields.
Firestorm is a collagraph print and I made this a response to images in The North and South Irish at the Front, Part 1.
Seacourt Print Workshop has partnered with the Digital Film Archive over the past 2 years using the many and varied films held in the archive as a starting point for conversation and exploring personal stories. Working with those with dementia, chronic illness and those new to art making, we saw how powerfully the films triggered memories, recollections, stories and songs. Then working with printmakers, we supported those groups in making prints in response to those feelings and stories.
We recognised that this process could be powerful for Artist Printmakers too and when the Digital Film Archive asked us to work on this project, we saw the opportunity for artists to respond to film in a similar way. We provided film clips that the 6 printmakers could view in advance and then gathered them for conversations about what inspired or resonated with them. Through these sessions, the artists shared their work in progress and reflected on the source material providing support to each other as they made new work.
The resulting prints are as diverse and varied as the source materials, but each captures a fleeting moment or feeling in response to these stories from The Great War.
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