Our Glorious Dead is a new site-specific artwork developed in response to the Wentworth Falls School of Arts as part of ‘Aerie‘, a Modern Art Projects Blue Mountains (MAPBM) exhibition curated by Cassandra Hard-Lawrie.
Our Glorious Dead acknowledges the impact of war on the community of Wentworth Falls and highlights the important role that the Wentworth Falls School of Art played in the community’s response to war. The School of Arts was a site where young men volunteered to fight for their country, where valour and loss of life were commemorated during and after the war, and where celebrations were organised upon the signing of peace treaties. In 1919, the Wentworth Falls School of Arts Committee voted to mark the end of World War I by installing a new flagpole on site in order to fly the national flag. The flags in this work were each made from a single piece of fabric which was cut up and then sewn back together, echoing the violent effects of war on the social fabric of this community and the subsequent work by community members to repair the damage as best they can. The flags are made with a cross-pattern design which references, variously, medals of valour, grave markers of fallen soldiers, the humanitarian work of the international red cross, and the Christian faith with its promise of resurrection. The title of the work is taken from a poem of the same name, written by Wentworth Falls local Isabel Ewing and published in 1916.
‘Aerie’ was supported by Blue Mountains City Council and the Blue Mountains City of the Arts Trust.
Tom Isaacs 