CONTENTS 2 3 4 6 8 9 10 11 12 14 16 17 18 19 20 22 24 25 26 27 28 30 32 33 34 35
Vikki Heywood, CBE – Foreword Jenny Waldman, CBE – Introduction Akram Khan Company Artichoke Gillian Wearing Katrina Palmer Graeae Theatre WildWorks Duke Riley Tauba Auerbach Phil Collins Isango Ensemble, Fred Khumalo ANU and CoisCéim Dance Theatre London Sinfonietta, George Benjamin Anna Meredith and 59 Productions William Kentridge Rachel Maclean Selina Thompson Debris Stevenson John Akomfrah Marc Rees Cause and Effect The Art of Border Living Traces of the Great War Sound&Fury Suzanne Lacy
36 38 40 41 42 43 44 46 47 48 50 51 52 54 55 56 57 58 60 62 64 66 67
Raqs Media Collective Paul Cummins, Tom Piper Christine Borland Heiner Goebbels ZooNation: The Kate Prince Company Bobby Baker Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Jason Moran, John Akomfrah James MacMillan Blast Theory Alice Oswald, Chris Drummond, Yaron Lifschitz, Jocelyn Pook National Theatre of Scotland Rachel Whiteread Iain Morrison and Dalziel + Scullion Julie Fowlis and Duncan Chisholm Magnus Lindberg Unwritten Poems Byron J Scullin + Supple Fox Peter Jackson Danny Boyle Partners 14-18 NOW: The Story So Far Team & Board Funders & Supporters
Front cover photo: Workshop for William Kentridge’s The Head14-18 and the Load. © Stella Olivier NOW isPhoto an independent programme hosted within Imperial War Museums Photo opposite: People reading public contributions to Dr Blighty by Nutkhut. Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, Brighton Festival and 14-18 NOW, IWM, Lambeth Road, London SE1 6HZ Royal Pavilion & Museums Brighton & Hove, 2016. Photo © Linda Nylind
VIKKI HEYWOOD, CBE CHAIRMAN 14-18 NOW When we launched 14-18 NOW in 2014, our ambition was to reach 10 million people. With hindsight, this seems modest – over the last four years, our programme has connected more than 30 million people with the First World War through powerful new art works. With this year’s programme, we aim to animate a heritage that often appears remote, particularly from younger audiences. We are continuing our drive to bring the conflict alive for younger people, and have already reached 7.5 million people under the age of 25. The programme gives us all opportunities to forge connections with the First World War and what it means today.
JENNY WALDMAN, CBE DIRECTOR 14-18 NOW Our sincere thanks go to those who have made this five-year programme possible, especially the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund and Arts Council England, and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport; our supporters, including leading trusts, foundations and philanthropists; all at Imperial War Museums; and our many partners, individual supporters and friends. In particular, we would like to thank our President, Lady Susie Sainsbury; the Backstage Trust; the Clore Duffield Foundation; Bloomberg Philanthropies, our international partner; and NatWest.
Welcome to 14-18 NOW’s 2018 season, with events taking place across the UK and online throughout the year. A century after the final months of the First World War, we look at the global impact of the war, the Armistice and its aftermath. We also focus on women’s roles in the conflict, and the landmark achievement of women’s suffrage, introduced in 1918.
lesser-known stories, and inviting us all to consider how the conflict still shapes our world. The new commissions in this year’s programme will enthral, disturb, challenge and inspire us. We are hugely grateful to all the artists and to our many commissioning and presenting partners who have been so generous with their talent, collaboration and commitment.
At the heart of the programme are the creative inspirations of artists. Since 2014, over 300 of the world’s leading artists in every art form have reflected on the events of 1914-1918, finding contemporary resonances and emotional connections, casting fresh light on well- and
I hope that you will find much of interest in the programme. Many of the projects are free, and there are plenty of opportunities to participate too. I look forward to welcoming you at many of the events in the programme this year.
Photo © Pari Naderi 2—3
XENOS
AKRAM KHAN COMPANY
Created and performed by Akram Khan, XENOS explores the experiences of an Indian colonial soldier in the first modern conflict, expressing both the beauty and horror of the human condition through sound, light and movement.
DATES 29 May – 9 June 2018 Sadler’s Wells Theatre Rosebery Avenue London EC1R 4TN 16-18 August 2018 Edinburgh International Festival Festival Theatre 13-29 Nicolson Street Edinburgh EH8 9FT
XENOS marks the final solo performances by Khan, one of Britain’s most revered dancers and choreographers. Taking inspiration from specific events during the First World War, this full-length solo work blends Indian classical dance with contemporary choreography in powerful and moving synergy.
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CREATIVE TEAM
Commissioned by 14-18 NOW and sponsored by COLAS
KADAMATI August – September 2018 Edinburgh & Paris To coincide with XENOS, 14-18 NOW, Edinburgh International Festival, Théâtre du Châtelet and Théâtre de la Ville, Paris present a community dance project for hundreds of dancers. Choreographed by Akram Khan, Kadamati draws on themes of identity, migration, connection and hope. Kadamati’s choreography was originally commissioned by the Mayor of London for Big Dance 2016.
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UK PREMIERE
Akram Khan Director/ Choreographer/Performer Mirella Weingarten Set Designer Michael Hulls Lighting Designer Kimie Nakano Costume Designer Vincenzo Lamagna Original Music Score Ruth Little Dramaturg Jordan Tannahill Writer Mavin Khoo Rehearsal Director Akram Khan Dancer Nina Harries, Andrew Maddick, BC Manjunath, Tamar Osborn, Aditya Prakash Musicians — Photo © Nicol Vizioli 4—5
PROCESSIONS ARTICHOKE
On 6 February 1918, the Representation of the People Act gave the first British women the right to vote, a landmark for women’s equality and British democracy. One hundred years on, 14-18 NOW and Artichoke, the UK’s largest producer of art in the public realm, invite women* and girls across the nation to mark this moment by taking part in a major mass-participation artwork. Thousands of women and girls from across the UK will walk together in public processions on Sunday 10 June in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh and London, forming a living portrait of women in the 21st century and a visual expression of equality, strength and cultural representation. PROCESSIONS celebrates the fight for suffrage and expresses what it means to be a woman today.
DATE 10 June 2018 Belfast Cardiff Edinburgh London —
WORLD PREMIERE — Image: Photo of Emmeline Pankhurst courtesy of The Women’s Library @ LSE. Image design by Grey London
Text and textiles are at the heart of the project. In the months leading up to Sunday 10 June, individuals and groups are taking part in a nationwide creative programme of bannermaking. In a series of special commissions, 100 artists are working with community groups across the country to make 100 iconic artworks in the form of banners, echoing the artistic practices of the women’s suffrage campaign and expressing the hopes and concerns of women today. PROCESSIONS also draws on the history of the campaign for female suffrage to inspire women today to vote and stand for office. —
Commissioned by 14-18 NOW and produced by Artichoke In proud partnership with NatWest
6—7
THE COFFIN JUMP
MILLICENT FAWCETT
KATRINA PALMER
GILLIAN WEARING
To celebrate 100 years since the first women in the United Kingdom won the right to vote, a new statue of suffragist campaigner Millicent Fawcett is being erected in Parliament Square, alongside existing statues commemorating other campaigners for justice and renowned figures including Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill and Mahatma Gandhi. The internationally acclaimed British artist Gillian Wearing uses a combination of traditional and modern techniques to create a work of art that honours past achievements and will inspire future reformers.
This new monument presents Fawcett’s individual courage as part of a collective struggle: the names and portraits of 58 male and female campaigners for equal rights are inscribed on the plinth. Fawcett’s famous slogan, ‘Courage calls to courage everywhere’, is a rallying call to the cause of social justice. —
Commissioned by the Mayor of London with 14-18 NOW, Firstsite and Iniva to commemorate the Centenary of the Representation of the People Act 1918, through the Government’s national centenary fund
DATES From 25 April 2018 Parliament Square Westminster London SW1P 3JX —
FREE — Image: Millicent Fawcett reproduced courtesy of Gillian Wearing. Photo © GLA/Caroline Teo
Katrina Palmer’s The Coffin Jump is inspired by the role of women in the First World War, with specific reference to the all-female First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY). Founded in 1907, the FANY helped to treat and evacuate wounded men from the battlefields, linking the front line with field hospitals. Visitors to Yorkshire Sculpture Park will see an intervention in the landscape, comprising an inscribed fence above a trench. Occasionally activated by a horse and rider, Palmer’s work combines sculpture, soundtrack and performance, and symbolises the new freedoms afforded to women in the war.
In spite of the nurses’ courage, the British Army initially refused to be associated with the women of the FANY, so instead they gave medical support to the Belgian and French armies. Later, they also helped to run medical convoys and drove ambulances in support of British forces. Palmer makes reference to their battle against prejudice through words drawn from sources that include the diaries of FANY member Muriel Thompson. Inscribed on the obstacle over which the horse leaps, phrases such as ‘woman saves man’ and ‘nothing special happened’ highlight the everyday heroism of women during the First World War.
DATES 16 June 2018 – June 2019 Yorkshire Sculpture Park West Bretton Wakefield WF4 4JX —
WORLD PREMIERE —
FREE — Image: The Coffin Jump SketchUp screenshot 09.13.56, courtesy of the artist
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Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and Yorkshire Sculpture Park, made possible with Art Fund support. Special thanks to Sir David Verey, The Henry Moore Foundation and The Clothworkers’ Company. With additional support from Melanie Gee, Larissa Joy and thanks to Midge & Simon Palley, Nicholas & Jane Ferguson and Tony McCallum
8—9
THIS IS NOT FOR YOU GRAEAE THEATRE This Is Not for You is an epic outdoor performance paying moving tribute to Britain’s wounded war veterans, men and women whose contributions to history often go unnoticed. The piece is directed by Jenny Sealey, written by Mike Kenny and performed by Blesma, The Limbless Veterans, professional performers and a choir of local people.
‘You go past the Cenotaph and the crowd clap you. It’s quite moving. We were waving to the crowd, and this little boy said: “This is not for you survivors. This is for the dead.” It made me feel guilty.’
This Is Not for You is a story of veterans’ fight for respect and remembrance, told with heft, beauty and wry humour, both on the ground and off it, with audio description and sign language as integral parts of the production. Graeae Theatre, with the National Centre for Circus Arts, has trained 25 disabled veterans in performance especially for the piece.
Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and Blesma, The Limbless Veterans, supported by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (UK Branch), The Drive Project and National Centre for Circus Arts
Alongside its performances around the UK, the work will inspire an extensive education and digital engagement programme, encouraging veterans and members of the public to share their experiences and stories on this important subject.
A veteran describing his experiences on Remembrance Sunday —
WildWorks, the country’s leading landscape theatre company, returns to The Lost Gardens of Heligan with their second site-specific work for 14-18 NOW. While 100: The Day Our World Changed (2014) focused on a generation walking into battle in 1914, this companion piece looks at the devastating aftermath of conflict, telling the homecoming stories of those who fight and live through war.
DATES 30 June & 1 July 2018 Greenwich+Docklands International Festival Royal Arsenal London SE18 2 & 3 August 2018 Stockton International Riverside Festival Stockton High Street Stockton-on-Tees TS18 1SF
100: UnEarth takes its inspiration from the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, a love story with a deeply moving ending. It explores grief and tragedy – but by considering how we learn to leave behind the past when our world changes beyond recognition, it also has hope at its heart. Conceived and created by Bill Mitchell, WildWorks’ founder and artistic director, before his untimely death last year, 100: UnEarth features artists, performers, musicians, veterans and members of the local community among a cast of hundreds in a unique spectacle, rooted in the Cornish landscape where it is both set and performed.
DATES 2-22 July 2018 The Lost Gardens of Heligan Pentewan St Austell Cornwall PL26 6EN —
WORLD PREMIERE — Image © WildWorks Design: Mydriddin Pharo Photo: Steve Tanner
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Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and The Lost Gardens of Heligan
All performances include creative British Sign Language and audio description — For more details visit 1418NOW.org.uk —
WORLD PREMIERE —
FREE —
100: UNEARTH WILDWORKS
Photo of Jez Scarratt and Craig Howorth by Becky Bailey
10—11
FLY BY NIGHT DUKE RILEY
Taking place at dusk above the River Thames, Fly By Night pays beautiful homage to some of the First World War’s unsung heroes: the military pigeons that played crucial roles delivering messages between distant personnel. The call of a whistle provides the signal for over 1,000 trained pigeons to emerge from their coop and soar, swoop and glide through the skies, with the leg bands that once carried vital messages replaced by tiny LED lights to create a glorious spectacle in the evening sky. This public artwork was originally presented by Duke Riley and Creative Time at New York City’s Brooklyn Navy Yard in 2016.
DATES 21-23 June 2018 East Thamesmead London —
UK PREMIERE — BOOKING For details visit 1418NOW.org.uk
More than 100,000 pigeons contributed to the British war effort, carrying messages from ship to shore, from battlefield to command post, and from pilots to forces on the ground. Some 95 per cent of messages arrived safely, changing the course of battles and saving dozens of lives. Illuminating the sky in a transcendent union of public art and nature, Fly By Night will commemorate the courageous yet often forgotten role of these urban creatures. A purpose-built coop in Thamesmead provides the pigeons’ home for 11 weeks before the performances of Fly By Night, which also features a programme of events and activities exploring the forgotten wartime history of the Woolwich Arsenal munitions factory and Crossness Pumping Station. —
Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, LIFT, Greenwich+Docklands International Festival and the London Borough of Bexley. Hosted by Peabody. Originally commissioned by Creative Time
12—13
DAZZLE SHIP NEW YORK TAUBA AUERBACH
The contemporary ‘dazzle ships’ moored on the rivers of Liverpool, Edinburgh and London to mark the First World War centenary have become familiar to millions. These brightly coloured boats pay homage to the hundreds of ships that were ‘dazzled’ during the First World War. Now the Dazzle Ship project moves to the United States, with a new commission by American artist Tauba Auerbach in New York City. Inspired by dazzle as a technology, the artist will transform a decommissioned fireboat, the historic John J. Harvey, into a floating artwork. The idea of ’dazzle’, an experimental camouflage painted on to the surface of ships, was pioneered by British artist Norman Wilkinson, who prepared numerous designs for vessels, including US merchant ships, targeted by enemy U-boats. Drawing on avant-garde artistic movements such as Cubism and Vorticism, as well as animal camouflage, these bewildering shapes and angles were designed to confuse the enemy as they struggled to make out the dazzle ships against shifting waves and clouds.
DATES Opening July 2018 New York Harbor New York USA —
WORLD PREMIERE —
FREE — Photo, top: Fireboat John J. Harvey, courtesy of David Grill Image, bottom: Detail of the concept sketch for Flow Separation, March 2018, courtesy of Tauba Auerbach
Public Art Fund and 14-18 NOW’s transformation of the fireboat into a dazzle ship by Auerbach will give the city a new riverside landmark, commemorating the centenary of Armistice and the innovation of dazzle. —
Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and Public Art Fund Dazzle Ship series co-commissioned with Liverpool Biennial Supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies
14—15
CEREMONY PHIL COLLINS The Russian Revolution took place in 1917, in a country exhausted by the First World War. The event shaped the political landscape of the 20th century. But it was in Manchester, not Imperial Russia, that the idea of communism was born. Friedrich Engels, co-founder of communist theory with his friend Karl Marx, lived in Manchester for 20 years. His philosophy was shaped by what he observed in the world’s first industrial city. At the initiative of award-winning artist Phil Collins, a decommissioned statue of Engels travelled in 2017 from a Ukrainian village across Europe to be permanently installed in Manchester. Over the course of a year, Collins collaborated with local organisations, activists and communities to explore Engels’ legacy and the lives of workers today. Collins describes Ceremony as ‘the search for a statue of Engels and its journey back home, the everyday stories of people from Manchester, and a homecoming party to inaugurate the statue, with Russia’s 1917 revolution as a pivotal moment in the process’.
The second part of Ceremony is a film interweaving these three strands – connecting Manchester to the idea of communism, which transformed the postwar world and helped to shape the society we live in today. The film is presented as a gallery installation at each location. —
Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, HOME, Manchester and Manchester International Festival. Produced by HOME, Manchester, Manchester International Festival, Shady Lane Productions and Tigerlily Productions. Supported by Arts Council England’s Ambition for Excellence, the BBC, the Henry Moore Foundation and My Festival Circle
In early 1917, the SS Mendi set sail from Cape Town, taking hundreds of black South African volunteers to support the Allied forces fighting in France. But early in the morning of 21 February 1917, the Mendi collided with a cargo ship amid thick fog in the English Channel south of the Isle of Wight and sank, killing 616 South Africans and 30 of the Mendi’s crew.
DATES
SS Mendi: Dancing the Death Drill, set in Paris 40 years after the war, focuses on one of the ship’s passengers: Pitso Motaung, who sailed aboard the Mendi and lived to tell the tale. Based on Fred Khumalo’s historical novel and performed by South Africa’s award-winning Isango Ensemble, SS Mendi: Dancing the Death Drill tells a startling story of how this maritime disaster gave rise to a life of hope, courage and resilience.
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DATES
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22 June – 30 September 2018 BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art South Shore Road Gateshead NE8 3BA
Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, Repons Foundation and Nuffield Southampton Theatres
29 June – 14 July 2018 NST City Nuffield Southampton Theatres 142-144 Above Bar Street Southampton SO14 7DU —
WORLD PREMIERE
CREATIVE TEAM Based on a book by Fred Khumalo Adapted by Isango Ensemble & Gbolahan Obisesan Music by Isango Ensemble & Mandisi Dyantyis Directed by Mark Dornford-May — Photo © Matthys Mocke
7 July – 19 August 2018 HOME 2 Tony Wilson Place First Street Manchester M15 4FN 10 August – 28 October 2018 MAC Belfast 10 Exchange Street West Belfast BT1 2NJ —
WORLD PREMIERE —
FREE — Image: Phil Collins, Ceremony, 2017. Photo by Joel Chester Fildes, courtesy of Shady Lane Productions
SS MENDI DANCING THE DEATH DRILL ISANGO ENSEMBLE, FRED KHUMALO 16—17
LONDON SINFONIETTA GEORGE BENJAMIN
THESE ROOMS ANU AND COISCÉIM DANCE THEATRE On 28 April 1916, five days into the Easter Rising, 15 civilian men were killed in house-to-house raids by British soldiers on a single Dublin street. An intense, immersive blend of theatre, dance and visual art by David Bolger, Owen Boss and Louise Lowe, These Rooms tells two stories: those of the civilians who were victims of and witnesses to the North King Street Massacre, and those of the young men of the South Staffordshire Regiment who committed this act – their identities largely anonymous, their actions controversially exonerated at a military enquiry.
Created by two of Ireland’s most original companies, These Rooms received unanimous critical acclaim when it was first presented in a dilapidated Dublin building in 2016 as part of the centenary commemorations of the Easter Rising. Wholly reimagined for its London run, this riveting work sheds new light on a pivotal moment in British-Irish relations. These Rooms is accompanied by Beyond These Rooms, an installation touring the UK in 2018. —
Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, LIFT and Shoreditch Town Hall
DATES 4 -22 June 2018 Shoreditch Town Hall 380 Old Street London EC1V 9LT —
UK PREMIERE — Image: ANU and CoisCéim Dance Theatre: Justine Cooper in These Rooms (2016). Photo by Pat Redmond
This special BBC Proms concert marks both 100 years since Armistice and 50 years since the London Sinfonietta was founded to perform the best in contemporary music.
DATE
Conducted by George Benjamin, the programme is centred on four brand new First World War-inspired compositions by a quartet of leading European composers: Luca Francesconi, Georg Friedrich Haas, Hannah Kendall and Isabel Mundry. The evening also features two pieces written either side of the war, Ives’ searching The Unanswered Question and Stravinsky’s elegant Symphonies of Wind Instruments, along with a monumental work by one of the most important figures in 20th-century music: Messiaen’s Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum, a homage to those who lost their lives in the two World Wars.
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21 July 2018 BBC Proms Roundhouse Chalk Farm Road London NW1 8EH
WORLD PREMIERE — Photo © Domizia Salusest
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Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, London Sinfonietta and BBC Proms
18—19
FIVE TELEGRAMS ANNA MEREDITH AND 59 PRODUCTIONS
Five Telegrams is a unique collaboration between Anna Meredith, one of the country’s most exciting contemporary composers – widely acclaimed for her album Varmints, which seamlessly crosses classical and pop – and 59 Productions, the Tony Award-winning design company whose work includes the London 2012 Opening Ceremony and the National Theatre smash hit War Horse. Part of 14-18 NOW, Five Telegrams will be presented at the BBC Proms and as the Standard Life Aberdeen Opening Event at the Edinburgh International Festival – the first time these two major cultural organisations have worked together in this way. —
DATES 13 July 2018 BBC Proms Royal Albert Hall Kensington Gore London SW7 2AP 3 August 2018 Edinburgh International Festival Festival Square Lothian Road Edinburgh EH3 9SR —
WORLD PREMIERE — Image, left: © 59 Productions Photo, right: Anna Meredith Photo © Kate Bones
Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, BBC Proms and Edinburgh International Festival
20—21
The Head and the Load combines music, dance, film projections, mechanised sculptures and shadow play to tell the story of the millions of African porters and carriers who served British, French and German forces during the First World War. The world premiere of this major new work will be staged in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. William Kentridge is a remarkably versatile artist whose evocative vision combines the political with the poetic. Dealing with subjects as sobering as colonialism and totalitarianism, his highly personal work is often imbued with lyrical undertones and references to his native South Africa. Taking its title from the Ghanaian proverb, ‘the head and the load are the troubles of the neck,’ Kentridge’s most ambitious project to date draws on every aspect of his practice: drawing, printmaking, painting, sculpting, performance and filmmaking. Working alongside his longtime collaborator Philip Miller, one of South Africa’s leading composers, this celebrated artist creates a stunning audiovisual monument to those who died for a cause that was not their own. This musical journey, as much an installation as a performance piece, combines performances by orchestra collective The Knights with an international cast of singers, dancers and performers, many of whom are based in South Africa. They are accompanied by a chorus of mechanised gramophones, projections and shadow play to create an extraordinary imaginative landscape on an epic scale.
THE HEAD AND THE LOAD
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Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, Park Avenue Armory and Ruhrtriennale with additional support from Holland Festival World premiere in London at Tate Modern, produced by THE OFFICE performing arts + film in association with Quaternaire The Head and the Load acknowledges the kind assistance of Marian Goodman Gallery, Goodman Gallery and Lia Rumma Gallery in this project
DATES 11–15 July 2018 Tate Modern Turbine Hall Bankside London SE1 9TG —
WORLD PREMIERE —
CREATIVE TEAM William Kentridge Concept & Director Philip Miller Composer Thuthuka Sibisi Co-Composer & Music Director Catherine Meyburgh, Janus Fouché & Žana Marović Video Designers Gregory Maqoma Choreographer Greta Goiris Costume Designer Sabine Theunissen Set Designer Urs Schönebaum Lighting Designer Luc De Wit Assistant Director Mark Grey Sound Designer Performed & created by Julia Zenzie Burnham, Mhlaba Buthelezi, Thulani Chauke, Luc De Wit, Hamilton Dlamini, Xolani Dlamini, Joanna Dudley, Ayanda Eleki, Lungile Halam, N’Faly Kouyate, Grace Magubane, Ncokwane Lydia Manyama, Nhlanhla Mahlangu, Tlale Makhene, Ann Masina, Tshegofatso Moeng, Mapule Moloi, Bham Ntabeni, Vincenzo Pasquariello, Mncedisi Shabangu, Sipho Seroto, Lindokuhle Thabede, and The Knights — BOOKING For details visit 1418NOW.org.uk — Photo © Stella Olivier
WILLIAM KENTRIDGE
22—23
MAKE ME UP RACHEL MACLEAN Make Me Up is a new film by acclaimed Scottish artist Rachel Maclean. Part horror movie, part comedy, Make Me Up reflects on the shortcomings of a century of female enfranchisement. It is inspired by suffragette protest, including Mary Richardson’s famous 1914 attack on Velázquez’s painting The Rokeby Venus. Make Me Up imagines a dystopian future where a group of women are trapped in a cruel reality TV-style competition, set in the modernist interiors of St Peter’s Seminary. Here, voting is not a liberation – it’s a harsh judgement the contestants must face. New arrival Siri learns the rules of a show where compliance and attractiveness are key. Emboldened by her growing friendship with fellow inmate Alexa, Siri finds ways of sabotaging the system, discovering some terrible truths in the process. —
Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and the BBC. Produced by NVA and Hopscotch Films, supported by Jerwood Charitable Foundation, Creative Scotland, BBC Scotland and Argyll and Bute Council
Make Me Up is part of Represent, a series of artworks inspired by the Representation of the People Act 1918. While the act gave the vote only to women over 30, Represent invites young female artists to explore democracy, equality and inclusion in contemporary Britain. Presented by 14-18 NOW and supported by Jerwood Charitable Foundation, Represent is accompanied by a programme of events, talks and professional development opportunities.
SORTITION SELINA THOMPSON DATES 2018 UK-wide screenings BBC TV broadcast —
WORLD PREMIERE — Image courtesy of the artist
A century after Parliament gave the first women the right to vote, Selina Thompson’s provocative new work turns this moment of democratic history on its head. Sortition is produced by and with Britons under the age of 30 who have never voted and have no intention of voting – ever. Developed with non-voters from across the UK, along with a team of political provocateurs, experts and troublemakers, Sortition imagines what the country would look like with representatives selected not by election but by lottery – at random. Thompson considers the distinction between using your own voice and electing someone to speak for you in a work exploring how young people make themselves heard in Britain today.
Sortition is part of Represent, a series of artworks inspired by the Representation of the People Act 1918. While the act gave the vote only to women over 30, Represent invites young female artists to explore democracy, equality and inclusion in contemporary Britain. Presented by 14-18 NOW and supported by Jerwood Charitable Foundation, Represent is accompanied by a programme of events, talks and professional development opportunities.
DATES 26 September – 6 October 2018 Arnolfini 16 Narrow Quay Bristol BS1 4QA —
WORLD PREMIERE —
FREE — Image shot by Sodium
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Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and Arnolfini, supported by Jerwood Charitable Foundation
24—25
What happens if you fight against the odds, against the opinions and attitudes that surround you, to achieve the life you want – and then realise it’s not what you need? Deborah ‘Debris’ Stevenson is a young poet, musician and dancer who has performed her unique work everywhere from BBC Radio 3’s The Verb to London’s Roundhouse. Thirteen years after encountering the early days of London’s grime scene, Stevenson uses music, movement, lyrics and poetry to recall how it gave her permission to redefine success and become a poet – but what has she forgotten along the way? Step into a pirate radio station, a teenage bedroom and a house party as an outsider battles to find her voice. —
Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and the Royal Court Theatre, supported by Jerwood Charitable Foundation
Debris Stevenson’s new work is part of Represent, a series of artworks inspired by the Representation of the People Act 1918. While the act gave the vote only to women over 30, Represent invites young female artists to explore democracy, equality and inclusion in contemporary Britain. Presented by 14-18 NOW and supported by Jerwood Charitable Foundation, Represent is accompanied by a programme of events, talks and professional development opportunities.
DATES 21 September – 6 October 2018 Royal Court Theatre Sloane Square London SW1W 8AS —
WORLD PREMIERE — Photo © Sheridan Winter
AFRICAN SOLDIER JOHN AKOMFRAH
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John Akomfrah’s new multimedia installation remembers the millions of Africans who fought as soldiers or served as porters during the First World War. Combining mixed archival sources with newly filmed material, artistic reflections and tableaux reconstructions, this groundbreaking work by one of the UK’s most celebrated filmmakers reveals how the conflict shaped the recent history of Africa and the lives of its inhabitants. In 1914, both Britain and Germany controlled vast territories in Africa. Native men were enlisted to fight alongside Europeans on both sides, supported by an army of porters responsible for transporting food and equipment. Of the 100,000 deaths among British forces during the East Africa campaign, 90 per cent were porters and 45,000 came from Kenya alone.
DEBRIS STEVENSON
Projected onto three screens, African Soldier tells a story of vast scope and enormous courage. In doing so, it commemorates and celebrates the African men and women whose suffering has been neglected for too long. —
Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, New Art Exchange, Nottingham and Smoking Dogs Films
DATES 21 September 2018 – 31 March 2019 IWM London Lambeth Road London SE1 6HZ September 2019 – December 2019 New Art Exchange 39-41 Gregory Boulevard Nottingham NG7 6BE —
WORLD PREMIERE —
FREE — ^ working
title
— Composite image courtesy of Smoking Dogs Films and Lisson Gallery. Images reproduced with the kind permission of the Estate of Lieutenant Colonel G C Hill and IWM
26—27
NAWR YR ARWR NOW THE HERO MARC REES
Marc Rees’ immersive theatrical experience takes visitors on a journey through three intertwining narratives of war: from Celtic history, the First World War and today’s conflicts. Drawing on an epic poem, a series of rejected paintings and an intimate portrait of a serving soldier, Nawr yr Arwr / Now the Hero counterpoints tragedy with hope.
DATES 25–29 September 2018 The Brangwyn Hall Swansea SA1 4PE —
WORLD PREMIERE — Image © David Brangwyn
Nawr yr Arwr / Now the Hero takes as its starting point the little-known British Empire Panels, painted by Frank Brangwyn. Originally commissioned by the House of Lords to commemorate the First World War, the paintings were rejected by Parliament as ‘too lively’ and have been displayed in Swansea since 1934. Brangwyn’s idyllic, fantastical landscapes, which depict hidden historical tragedy, are a poignant and significant memorial to the war, and have inspired Rees to create an ambitious multimedia spectacle linking past and present conflicts with the search for peace. At the heart of Nawr yr Arwr / Now the Hero is a requiem composed by the late Jóhann Jóhannsson and Owen Morgan Roberts, featuring a libretto by Owen Sheers sung by Stephen Layton’s world-famous choir Polyphony. The performance moves through scenes reflecting on war, peacetime unity and harmony via a battle, a wedding party, a protest dance and a wake. It culminates with a Harvest Gathering, curated by Owen Griffiths, to include soup made with local ingredients as featured in Brangwyn’s paintings. —
Commissioned by 14-18 NOW. Produced by Taliesin Arts Centre/Swansea University in partnership with the City & County of Swansea and Swansea International Festival and with the generous support of Arts Council of Wales, the Welsh Government, the City & County of Swansea, the Colwinston Charitable Trust, Swansea University and Heritage Lottery Fund – Awards for All 28—29
CAUSE AND EFFECT ROUNDHOUSE WITH GAIKA, LOWKEY, AWATE AND MORE
A digital project bringing together some of the UK’s most exciting new and emerging music and spoken-word artists, Cause and Effect investigates the complex, fractured relationship between the First World War and young people in Britain today. One hundred years after its final salvos, the First World War can sometimes feel like ancient history – a distant, grainy event with little relevance to our contemporary world. And yet there are countless connections to be drawn between then and now: between the post-war growth in women’s rights and today’s continuing fight for gender equality; between the rise of the labour movement in the 1920s and the struggle for workers’ rights in the 21st-century gig economy; and even between the post-war carve-up of north Africa and the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.
DATES Autumn 2018 — For more details visit 1418NOW.org.uk —
WORLD PREMIERE —
FREE — Image design by the unloved
Eight leading music and spoken-word artists, including underground musician Gaika and hip hop artists Lowkey and Awate, will explore these subjects and others through a series of dynamic new digital works. Using music, spoken word and film to engage with contemporary themes that connect us with the conflict, Cause and Effect will retrace the narrative thread that runs from 14-18 to now. —
A Roundhouse production commissioned by 14-18 NOW
30—31
A sonic adventure featuring a wealth of newly commissioned writing inspired by borderlands over the past 100 years. There was no Irish border in 1918, yet in Yeats’ words, Ireland was ‘changed utterly’ by the Easter Rising of 1916. Thousands of volunteers from the Unionist and Nationalist traditions were fighting in France, Belgium and Gallipoli, all wearing the British uniform. They were on the same side, but fighting for different things. What they shared were homes and families along what would soon become the border between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. At the time, a feeling of shared identity still persisted in the borderlands, soon to be thrown into a state of violent flux with the emergence of new identities decided by external forces.
Award-winning sound designer David Thomas and documentary maker Peter Curran are collaborating with a number of leading writers and the Verbal Arts Centre in Northern Ireland on this creative documentary for broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster. The project also features live performances and a series of audio art podcasts combining the written word with soundscapes, textures from Ulster’s natural world and the voices of the communities that are of this place, then and now. —
Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, the Verbal Arts Centre and The Foghorn Company
DATES Autumn 2018 Northern Ireland — For more details visit 1418NOW.org.uk —
WORLD PREMIERE — Photo © Joseph Molloy
TRACES OF THE GREAT WAR CHARLIE ADLARD, SIMON ARMITAGE, EDMOND BAUDOIN, JUAN DÍAZ CANALES, RÉGIS HAUTIÈRE, JOE KELLY, KRIS, THOMAS VON KUMMANT, VICTORIA LOMASKO, MAËL, DAVE MCKEAN, MIKIKO, ROBBIE MORRISON, KEN NIIMURA, SEAN PHILLIPS, IAN RANKIN, RIFF REB’S, ORIJIT SEN, BRYAN TALBOT, MARY TALBOT, AND MORE
THE ART OF BORDER LIVING
Traces of the Great War is an ambitious anthology of new illustrated short stories by internationally acclaimed comic book artists, graphic novelists and writers, all of which explore the continued relevance and resonance of the First World War and its aftermath in our lives today. An international collaboration between the Lakes International Comic Art Festival (LICAF) and On a Marché sur la Bulle in Amiens, France, commissioned by 14-18 NOW and La Mission du centenaire de la Première Guerre mondiale, Traces of the Great War features contributions from both the UK and around the world. The anthology includes a number of collaborations between graphic artists and writers (Dave McKean with poet Simon Armitage, Sean Phillips with
novelist Ian Rankin), and between artists and illustrators who have never worked together before (Juan Díaz Canales and Kris, Régis Hautière and Thomas von Kummant).
DATES
Traces of the Great War launches in October 2018 at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival (Kendal, UK) and Salon du livre d’Albert (Albert, France), and is accompanied by touring exhibitions and a wide-ranging education programme.
October 2018 Salon du livre d’Albert Albert France
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Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, La Mission du centenaire de la Première Guerre mondiale, On a Marché sur la Bulle and Lakes International Comic Arts Festival
Image © Edmond Baudoin
12-14 October 2018 Brewery Arts Centre 122a Highgate Kendal Cumbria LA9 4HE
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UK PREMIERE
32—33
ACROSS AND IN-BETWEEN SUZANNE LACY
CHARLIE WARD SOUND&FURY Sound&Fury’s intimate, immersive and immensely powerful sound installation places audiences in the heart of a makeshift wartime hospital, where an unlikely therapy brings solace and comfort to those injured on the battlefield. Some say that British soldiers in the trenches held up cardboard cut-outs of Charlie Chaplin’s tramp in the hope that the enemy would die laughing. But as the carnage of war set in, Chaplin’s image was put to a different use. To boost morale, medical staff at improvised hospitals near the front line arranged for Chaplin films to be shown for the bedridden, with the ward’s ceiling serving as the silver screen.
For one soldier on Charlie Ward, the flickering images, whirring projector and Chaplin’s perfect comic timing trigger complex emotions and memories. Cast from the trenches to childhood, from trauma to dreams, the hospital film show sets him on a journey into a personal no man’s land. Using their distinctive style – total darkness, minimal lighting and immersive sound design – Sound&Fury’s extraordinary work returns for a much-anticipated encore after premiering to great critical acclaim during 14-18 NOW’s opening season in 2014. Charlie Ward is a sound installation lasting around 15 minutes and presented to audiences of just 10 people at each performance. —
DATES 10-22 September 2018 Theatre Deli 202 Eyre Street Sheffield S1 4QZ 24 September – 6 October 2018 York Army Museum 3A Tower Street York YO1 9SB — Image: Sound&Fury
Borders have profound impacts on the lives of people who live on or near them. Some borders, such as the one dividing Northern Ireland from the Republic, run through lakes, roads and farmland. The Partition of Ireland dates from the end of the First World War. After the Easter Rising of 1916 and the assertion of independence by Sinn Féin in 1918, a devastating civil war broke out following the division of Ireland into north and south. The consequences of partition are still felt today.
Suzanne Lacy investigates how the border frames identity and intervenes in the routine of everyday life. For this new commission, she co-creates with residents a series of localised gatherings and individual musings on visible and invisible borders.
DATES
Lacy is a celebrated pioneer of social practice, a form of art that engages the public in collaborative projects on social issues such as class, race and gender equity. For the final season of 14-18 NOW, Lacy works with communities from both sides of the Irish border on a shared artistic project.
Image: Between the Door and the Street (2015) Produced by Creative Time and the Elizabeth Sackler Center at the Brooklyn Museum of Art Brooklyn, New York Photo by Nicola Goode
Autumn 2018 Northern Ireland —
WORLD PREMIERE —
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Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and Belfast International Arts Festival
Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and Fuel
34—35
NOT YET AT EASE RAQS MEDIA COLLECTIVE
Not Yet At Ease explores the history of psychological disorders resulting from conflict and the stigmas attached to them. Using poetry and performance, this immersive artwork is inspired by letters written by soldiers during wartime. The internationally renowned, Delhi-based Raqs Media Collective have based this new work on their theory that the symptoms of ‘shell shock’ were first observed by military censors, who noticed a tendency among some Indian soldiers to break out spontaneously into ‘poetry’ in the letters they wrote from battlefields, barracks and hospitals. Not Yet At Ease gives voice to these words.
DATES 29 September 2018 – 20 January 2019 Firstsite, Colchester High Street Colchester CO1 1JH —
WORLD PREMIERE —
FREE — Source image: Kut, Mesopotamia/Iraq, 1918, by Ariel Varges, courtesy of IWM
This major commission reworks letters, photographs and documents dating back to the First World War. Innovative video and sound installations tell the story of the condition known at the time as ‘shell shock’ and considers how attitudes have changed towards those who carry the psychological burdens of war. In doing so, Not Yet At Ease invites visitors to explore interlinked histories of war, poetry and mental health. —
Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and Firstsite, Colchester
36—37
DATES 14 March – 29 April 2018 Weeping Window Hereford Cathedral 5 College Cloisters Cathedral Close Hereford HR1 2NG
POPPIES: WAVE AND WEEPING WINDOW PAUL CUMMINS, ARTIST AND TOM PIPER, DESIGNER Wave and Weeping Window, the iconic Poppies sculptures by artist Paul Cummins and designer Tom Piper, have now been seen by more than 3.5 million people in 13 locations on tour across the UK. The sculptures visit a further six sites in 2018, inviting people around the country to engage directly with these beautiful and moving works of art. ‘It’s the most beautiful way of commemorating loss. The fact that every poppy is different is quite special.’
This year, you can see the sculptures at the 12th-century Hereford Cathedral; the Royal Armouries at Fort Nelson, built to protect the naval stronghold of Portsmouth; Carlisle Castle, the base for 23,000 wartime recruits; and Middleport Pottery in Stoke-on-Trent, the country’s last working Victorian pottery. The tour concludes at IWM London and IWM North, before the works become part of IWM’s permanent collection. With thanks to the Backstage Trust, the Clore Duffield Foundation, the Foyle Foundation and DAF Trucks.
13 April – 24 June 2018 Wave Royal Armouries Museum Fort Nelson Portsdown Hill Road Fareham PO17 6AN 23 May – 8 July 2018 Weeping Window Carlisle Castle Castle Way Carlisle Cumbria CA3 8UR 2 August – 16 September 2018 Weeping Window Middleport Pottery Port Street Burslem Stoke-on-Trent ST6 3PE 8 September – 25 November 2018 Wave IWM North Trafford Wharf Road Stretford Manchester M17 1TZ 5 October – 18 November 2018 Weeping Window IWM London Lambeth Road London SE1 6HZ —
FREE — Photo © Matt Keeble/ Getty Images
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Wave and Weeping Window are from the installation Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red – poppies and original concept by artist Paul Cummins and installation designed by Tom Piper – by Paul Cummins Ceramics Limited in conjunction with Historic Royal Palaces, originally at HM Tower of London 2014 38—39
EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED AND WOULD HAPPEN
I SAY NOTHING CHRISTINE BORLAND In 1918 and 1919, Glasgow Museums purchased a collection of boxes containing charms and amulets ‘worn by the fighting men in the Great War’. The handwritten title of one of the charms (a Chinese soapstone monkey) is ‘I say nothing’. These, along with three mule hooves, a moss-filled pillow and a book of French grammar riddled with shrapnel holes, are among the objects to which Christine Borland found herself drawn during her year of research at Glasgow Museums Resource Centre. Of particular interest to the artist has been a modest white ceramic invalid feeder cup in the museums’ handling collection. The teapot-like object, examples of which were used both to nurse the sick during the war and force-feed hunger-striking suffragettes in the years running up to 1914, speaks of the duality of institutional care and brutality.
HEINER GOEBBELS
Through an expanded focus on this object, Borland explores the potential for a simple object to embody something much more than the reality of its humble form or material. While the stasis of storage – or, indeed, the passing of time – can render historical objects mute, I Say Nothing aims to give them a voice.
DATES
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From 12 October 2018 Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum Argyle Street Glasgow G3 8AG —
WORLD PREMIERE
Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and Glasgow Museums, made possible with Art Fund support
FREE — Photo: A collection of charms and amulets purchased by Glasgow Museums in 1918 and 1919 from folklorist Edward Lovett. © CSG CIC Glasgow Museums Collection
Created by the singular German artist and composer Heiner Goebbels and receiving its world premiere in Manchester as part of 14-18 NOW, this Artangel co-commission explores the world since the outbreak of the first great war of the 20th century: a contradictory, non-linear world lurching from the crisis of conflict to the promise of peace as 100 years pass by. Voices, bodies, objects and music fill the void in a compulsive attempt to restore order. Part-performance, part-construction site, Everything that happened and would happen is a re-enactment of history, always on the verge of collapse – only to be rebuilt as if nothing had happened.
DATES October 2018 Manchester —
WORLD PREMIERE — BOOKING For details visit 1418NOW.org.uk — Photo © Klaus Grünberg
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Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, Artangel, Park Avenue Armory and Ruhrtriennale. The world premiere is co-presented with Manchester International Festival as a Trailblazer for The Factory
40—41
Exactly a century after (some) British women were first given the right to vote, Kate Prince, one of the UK’s leading choreographers, celebrates the life of a central figure in the fight for this seminal change. A dynamic modern musical fusing dance, hip hop, soul and funk, Sylvia sheds new light on a remarkable figure at the heart of the suffrage movement.
‘Sylvia Pankhurst was incredibly progressive in so many ways. Wherever there was injustice, she felt the need to help. She couldn’t just stand by and silently tolerate the inequality of the time. She wanted votes for ALL, men and women, regardless of class. She didn’t judge people on race, religion, class or gender – and she was doing this 100 years ago.’
DATES
Sylvia tells the story of Sylvia Pankhurst, the formidable campaigner for women’s rights, and her fractured family, which helped hold together the women’s suffrage campaign while ripping itself apart. Written by Kate Prince and Priya Parmar, with original music by Josh Cohen and DJ Walde, Sylvia shows why Pankhurst remains a hugely relevant figure today.
Kate Prince
Photo © Time Life Pictures/ Mansell/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
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1–22 September 2018 The Old Vic The Cut London SE1 8NB —
WORLD PREMIERE —
Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW. An Old Vic, Sadler’s Wells and ZooNation: The Kate Prince Company production
GREAT & TINY WAR BOBBY BAKER In 2014, 100 years after the start of the war, artist Bobby Baker began reimagining what day-to-day life is like in times of conflict. In this new work she invites us on a tour of a transformed house – an ingenious, immersive multimedia installation inspired by real stories, passed down through her family and shaped by the domestic and emotional labour of conflicts.
Great & Tiny War serves as a monument to their unacknowledged private struggles and personal strength, and will resonate with anyone whose family has been touched by war. —
Commissioned by 14-18 NOW with Daily Life Ltd and Wunderbar
DATES September – November 2018 Newcastle —
WORLD PREMIERE — Photo © Daily Life Ltd
Guests will meet with an uncommon experience as the house contents juxtapose the spectacular with the everyday – a ghostly heroine, an edible armoury, 4,701 reinvented dinners – and other happenings of unpredictable proportions.
SYLVIA ZOONATION: THE KATE PRINCE COMPANY
Baker’s astonishing installation shines a light on the role of women during wartime and the impact of conflicts, historical and contemporary, on the mental health of whole families through the generations. In doing so, she celebrates the women who carry on running houses, bringing up children and keeping families together at the most harrowing of times.
42—43
CONTAGION
SHOBANA JEYASINGH DANCE
The casualty count of the First World War was immense – but it came to be dwarfed by the deadly Spanish flu pandemic that swept through the world during the conflict’s final year. The virulent flu strain that emerged in 1918 infected up to 500 million people around the globe, its effects dramatically amplified by huge wartime troop movements. It eventually killed as much as five per cent of the world’s population.
DATES
Contagion, a powerful new work from leading choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh, is inspired by the nature and rapid spread of the flu virus – the unseen enemy that mankind was battling, while engaging in more conventional warfare in the world outside. The striking work of the Austrian artist Egon Schiele, one of many who fell victim to the Spanish flu, forms a visual footnote to the piece.
18 & 19 October 2018 St Gabriel’s Church 1 St Gabriel’s Avenue Sunderland SR4 7TF
Set to an atmospheric soundscape and presented in promenade style with striking digital visuals, Contagion is presented in unusual venues, many with connections to the First World War. The work is accompanied by an innovative digital amplification and learning and engagement programme, bringing the public closer to a subject that remains relevant today.
15 & 16 September 2018 Gymnasium Gallery The Barracks Parade Berwick-upon-Tweed TD15 1DF 22 & 23 September 2018 The Great Hall The Castle Castle Avenue Winchester SO23 8UJ
21 October 2018 IWM North Trafford Wharf Road Stretford Manchester M17 1TZ — For more details visit 1418NOW.org.uk —
WORLD PREMIERE — Image: Design by Spy Studio Original photo by Chris Nash
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Co-commisioned by 14-18 NOW and Shobana Jeyasingh Dance, supported by Wellcome, Oak Foundation and the Deborah Loeb Brice Donor Advised Fund at CAF America
44—45
Dispatched from its native New York in 1917, the 369th Infantry Regiment was the first African American fighting unit to join the Allied forces in France. The so-called Harlem Hell-fighters won renown for their toughness in combat, but the unit’s band, led by James Reese Europe, also gained plenty of admirers. Their jazz and ragtime music was received with wild appreciation by the French, though the bandleader never returned to capitalise on the acclaim. Just months after his return to the US, aged 39, Europe died at the hands of his drummer.
‘The concert emerges as a document of a story passed down. John Akomfrah and I also talked about the idea of the “absence of ruin”, an idea presented by Orlando Patterson in relationship to how African Americans have very few structures that tell us about where we have been. So, how do African Americans deal with histories vanishing constantly, and how does the music becomes the structure?’
Jason Moran, one of the most original musicians and thinkers in contemporary jazz, and John Akomfrah, the widely acclaimed British artist and filmmaker, tell the bandleader’s story in this ambitious multi-dimensional piece. Taking in both archive audiovisual material and live music, James Reese Europe and the Absence of Ruin moves through past, present and future as it reflects on the African American presence in Europe during the war – and the marks it left here during the subsequent century.
Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, Serious and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
DATES October 2018 National tour — For more details visit 1418NOW.org.uk — Photo © Underwood Archives/ Getty Images
Jason Moran —
JAMES REESE EUROPE AND THE ABSENCE OF RUIN
JASON MORAN, JOHN AKOMFRAH
ALL THE HILLS AND VALES ALONG JAMES MACMILLAN Charles Hamilton Sorley, one of the great British war poets, ascended to the rank of captain in August 1915 aged just 20, having postponed his education to volunteer for service in the British Army. Two months later, he was shot and killed at the Battle of Loos. James MacMillan, one of Britain’s leading composers, has chosen five of Sorley’s poems for the text to All the Hills and Vales Along, a major new oratorio written to commemorate the Armistice. MacMillan has composed this powerful work for internationally acclaimed British tenor Ian Bostridge, who performs it this autumn in two distinct arrangements. Eamonn Dougan conducts the world premiere of the chamber version at MacMillan’s Cumnock Tryst festival, before Gianandrea Noseda directs the world premiere of the orchestral version at London’s Barbican Centre. —
Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and the London Symphony Orchestra
DATES Chamber version 6 October 2018 Cumnock Old Church The Square Cumnock KA18 1DB Eamonn Dougan Conductor Edinburgh String Quartet Nikita Naumov Double Bass Ian Bostridge Tenor Dalmellington Band The Cumnock Tryst Festival Chorus Orchestral version 4 November 2018 Barbican Centre Silk Street London EC2Y 8DS Gianandrea Noseda Conductor London Symphony Orchestra Ian Bostridge Tenor National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain London Symphony Chorus —
WORLD PREMIERE — Photo © Hans van der Woerd 46—47
TO FIGHT BLAST THEORY
Nearly six million Britons fought in the First World War, both as conscripts and volunteers. More than 16,000 men, though, refused to enlist, claiming status as conscientious objectors – and, in many cases, paying a heavy price for their decision.
DATES October 2018 UK-wide —
WORLD PREMIERE
This new interactive film, created by pioneering art group Blast Theory, explores why some of us choose to go to war while others opt to remain at home, and puts the audience at the heart of the conversation. Screened live as a single continuous shot, To Fight invites viewers to interact with and react to the action while they watch. Creatively unique and technologically cutting-edge, To Fight asks us to consider our own convictions, whatever they are, at a time when it is just as important to both question and commit to our own beliefs. —
Commissioned by 14-18 NOW
48—49
Armistice Day, 2018. A pregnant schoolteacher on a trip to the battlefields goes AWOL in a wood while on a personal mission of remembrance. An injured veteran of the Iraq war relives the nightmare of battle. A blindfolded soldier wakes up after 100 years to hear the birds singing once more.
ALICE OSWALD
MEMORIAL CHRIS DRUMMOND, YARON LIFSCHITZ, JOCELYN POOK Alice Oswald’s powerful, book-length poem Memorial was published to widespread critical praise in 2011 – but as Oswald herself says, ‘it was written to be spoken out loud.’ Now, director Chris Drummond of Australia’s acclaimed Brink Productions takes Memorial from page to stage in this poignant and atmospheric new theatre work, capturing the poem’s essence while drawing fresh connections between its Homer-inspired narrative and the First World War.
Memorial is inspired by the Iliad. But rather than attempt to retell Homer’s monumental tale, Oswald’s poem instead focuses on the fates of the soldiers named within it, turning a heroic epic into a human lament for the lost and forgotten. This new stage work is directed by Drummond, with a soundtrack from Olivier Award-winning composer Jocelyn Pook and movement directed by Circa’s Yaron Lifschitz. Leading Australian actress Helen Morse will be joined on stage by a choral army of 215 men and women – one for every soldier in Oswald’s poem, all drawn from local community choirs. —
Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and the Barbican, with assistance from the Australia Council for the Arts and the Australian Government’s Major Festivals Initiative, in association with the Confederation of Australian International Arts Festivals Inc, Adelaide Festival, Brisbane Festival and Melbourne Festival, and with support from the Australian Government’s Anzac Centenary Arts and Culture Fund
Following the world premieres of Dawn and Day as part of 14-18 NOW in 2016 and 2017, Oliver Emanuel and Gareth Williams’ compelling trilogy ends with this moving piece of music theatre about memory, friendship and betrayal. Directed by Wils Wilson, Dusk is set on a single day: 11 November 2018, 100 years on from the end of the war. From the two-minute silence until sundown, three disparate characters, a string quartet and a choir of voices show how our world today is still being shaped by the First World War.
DATES
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27–30 September 2018 Barbican Theatre Silk Street London EC2Y 8DS
A National Theatre of Scotland and Perth Theatre production, co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW
DATES 12–27 October 2018 Perth Theatre Mill Street Perth PH1 5HZ —
WORLD PREMIERE —
CREATIVE TEAM Written by Oliver Emanuel Composed by Gareth Williams Directed by Wils Wilson
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UK PREMIERE —
CREATIVE TEAM Alice Oswald Text Chris Drummond, Yaron Lifschitz Concept Chris Drummond Director Jocelyn Pook Composer Yaron Lifschitz Movement Michael Hankin Design Renate Henschke Costumes Nigel Levings Lighting Jane Rossetto Sound Benjamin Knapton Associate Director — Photo: Helen Morse in rehearsal for Memorial © Shane Reid
THE 306: DUSK NATIONAL THEATRE OF SCOTLAND 50—51
NISSEN HUT PART OF THE SHY SCULPTURE SERIES RACHEL WHITEREAD
Deep in Yorkshire’s Dalby Forest stands a ghostly white cabin. By casting in concrete, within the forest, the interior space of a Nissen hut, the prefab military structure invented during the First World War, artist Rachel Whiteread has turned it inside out. The Forestry Commission, which manages Dalby Forest, came into being in 1919 to replenish the nation’s strategic timber reserve after the First World War. Nissen huts were utilised in the labour camps created to support the planting of Dalby Forest. They were also used in prisoner of war camps in this and other forests across the country.
DATES From 9 October 2018 Dalby Forest North East Yorkshire YO18 7LT —
WORLD PREMIERE —
FREE — Photo © Tamsin Dillon
By focusing on empty space and transforming it into sculpture, Whiteread – one of this country’s most important living artists and the first woman to win the Turner Prize – creates a haunting testament to the war’s impact on every part of the British landscape. This monument brings visitors into the heart of the forest, a living, breathing space in which to view art. —
Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and the Forestry Commission
52—53
Magnus Lindberg, London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Composer in Residence, marks the eve of Armistice with a major new setting of a wartime work by Finnish poet Edith Södergran. Although it was written in 1916, during the tumult of the First World War, Södergran’s poem Triumph to Exist! is a vital exultation on the wonders of life – as Lindberg puts it, the words of someone who ‘refuses to submit to the hopelessness all around her’.
IOLAIRE IAIN MORRISON AND DALZIEL + SCULLION
The London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir premiere Lindberg’s piece alongside three other works with wartime resonance: Debussy’s sombre Berceuse héroïque, written as his fellow Frenchmen went into battle at the start of the conflict; Requiem Canticles, Stravinsky’s adaptation of the Catholic requiem mass; and The Eternal Gospel, Janáček’s ecstatic 1914 oratorio.
JULIE FOWLIS AND DUNCAN CHISHOLM Late on New Year’s Eve 1918, HMY Iolaire set sail from Kyle of Lochalsh in north-west Scotland, carrying nearly 300 seamen home to the Isle of Lewis after the war. But in the early hours of New Year’s Day 1919, the ship sank at the entrance to Stornoway Harbour: 201 servicemen perished in one of the most devastating maritime tragedies in modern British history. To mark the centenary of the tragedy, 14-18 NOW and An Lanntair have commissioned two new suites of Gaelic music. Composed by Lewis-born musician Iain Morrison, whose great-grandfather was among those drowned, and presented with pioneering Scottish artists Dalziel + Scullion, Sàl (Saltwater) has its roots in ceòl mòr, the ‘great music’ of the Highland bagpipes. An Treas Suaile (The Third Wave), by BBC Radio 2 Folk Award winner Julie Fowlis and violinist-composer Duncan Chisholm, mixes new and traditional music, archive recordings and visuals. Its title was inspired by the actions of John Finlay MacLeod, who swam ashore with a rope from the Iolaire and helped save dozens of lives.
Sàl and An Treas Suaile will both be premiered in Stornoway before forming a focal point of the island’s centennial commemorations on 31 December 2018. —
Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and An Lanntair
‘For me, the poem says something deeply essential about the tragedy of millions of young men who gave their lives in that useless slaughter. They were deprived of the simple human triumph to merely exist. Every syllable cries out to be set to music.’ Magnus Lindberg
DATE 10 November 2018 Royal Festival Hall Southbank Centre Belvedere Road London SE1 8XX —
WORLD PREMIERE
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Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lille and Gulbenkian Orchestra
— Photo © Vetta/Getty Images
DATES Sàl 27 October, 29 December 2018 An Treas Suaile 9 & 10 November 2018 An Lanntair Arts Centre Kenneth Street Stornoway HS1 2DS —
WORLD PREMIERE — Photo: Biastan Thuilm (The Beasts of Holm), Isle of Lewis © Roddy Murray
TRIUMPH TO EXIST MAGNUS LINDBERG
54—55
Over the 10 days of Ipswich’s SPILL Festival of Performance, a large-scale outdoor sonic artwork will ring out from the waterfront into the town’s public spaces. This unexpected intervention calls out to the setting sun in daily incantations, its voices reflecting contemporary Britain while exploring the local history of the First World War.
UNWRITTEN POEMS Unwritten Poems invites poets of the Caribbean diaspora from around the world to explore new perspectives on the Caribbean experience during the First World War. In 1915, Britain’s War Office agreed to accept the first volunteers from the West Indies. A total of 15,600 men eventually joined the British West Indies Regiment’s 11 battalions during the First World War. However, these soldiers’ stories remain largely unheard – and while the wealth of First World War poetry has had a profound impact on our understanding of the conflict, very little of it addresses the war’s impact on the Caribbean men who served, their families and communities, and the relationship between the Caribbean and the UK in the decades that followed. Co-curated by Karen McCarthy Woolf and Sue Roberts, Unwritten Poems considers what it means to be cast into and then omitted from a story or events, left voiceless on a cultural landscape that treasures self-expression.
Devised by Melbourne-based artists Byron J Scullin, Tom Supple and Hannah Fox, Clarion Call uses audio technology originally employed in war and emergencies, and the voices and songs of women and girls, to create a soundscape of immense scale.
DATES October–November 2018 Ipswich Waterfront —
UK PREMIERE —
FREE — Photo © Thomas Hyland
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Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and Pacitti Company for the SPILL Festival of Performance. Developed with the support of Dark Mofo Festival, Tasmania
DATES Autumn 2018 Live (Hull, Birmingham and the Caribbean), publication, broadcast and documentary — For more details visit 1418NOW.org.uk —
WORLD PREMIERE — Photo © IWM (Q 1202)
CLARION CALL BYRON J SCULLIN + SUPPLE FOX
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Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, BBC Contains Strong Language and the British Council 56—57
A NEW FILM BY
PETER JACKSON The First World War proved to be a landmark in cinema history – the first time that the horrors of war could be caught on camera. Hours of footage filmed on the battlefields captured the realities of the conflict in unprecedented detail, providing the public with astonishing access to the frontline: The Battle of the Somme, a documentary produced with the cooperation of the War Office, was seen by an estimated 20 million Britons in its first six weeks of release. Peter Jackson, best known for directing The Lord of the Rings trilogy, is developing a new film using original footage from Imperial War Museums’ extensive archive, much of it previously unseen, alongside BBC and IWM interviews with servicemen who fought in the conflict.
DATES BFI London Film Festival Cinemas and schools, UK-wide October 2018 Into Film Festival November 2018 BBC One November 2018 — BBC exclusive The Making Of documentary November 2018 —
WORLD PREMIERE — Image: This film still from The Battle of the Somme has been transformed by WingNut Films with Peter Jackson. © IWM (IWM 191) Original black and white
Building on Jackson’s extensive interest in and knowledge of the First World War, this exciting new film will use modernday techniques such as colourisation to portray the Great War as never before, and promises to provide a 21st-century public with a unique new perspective on the 20th century’s most shocking conflict. The film will be screened in cinemas and schools across the UK, and broadcast on BBC One; further details of theatrical distribution will be announced later this year at 1418NOW.org.uk —
Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and Imperial War Museums in association with the BBC and Executive Produced by House Productions. Special thanks to Matthew & Sian Westerman with additional support from The Taylor Family Foundation, The Moondance Foundation, Welsh Government, Scottish Government, the British Council, Tim Bunting, Jacqueline & Richard Worswick and one anonymous donor 58—59
ARMISTICE
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DANNY BOYLE
On 11 November 1918, an agreement to stop fighting was signed between France, Britain and Germany, bringing over four years of fighting in the First World War to an end. The ceasefire came into effect at 11am: all along the Western Front, the guns fell silent and military operations were suspended.
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In Britain, workplaces and schools closed for the day as crowds took to the streets waving flags, singing patriotic songs and attending impromptu street parties.
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11 November 2018 UK-wide —
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Photo © Topical Press Agency/Getty Images
But for many, rejoicing was tempered by the realisation of the huge scale of loss and suffering the war had caused, and the uncertain future of the post-war world. Filmmaker Danny Boyle invites communities across the UK to come together in marking 100 years since the Armistice and the end of the war. Details will be announced later this year – visit 1418NOW.org.uk and join our mailing list to be among the first to find out more. —
Commissioned by 14-18 NOW. In partnership with the National Trust. Supported by the Big Lottery Fund
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PARTNERS
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THE STORY SO FAR 14-18 NOW is a UK-wide programme of extraordinary arts experiences connecting people to the First World War. Since 2014, we have worked with 213 UK and international artists and over 300 arts and cultural organisations to present 73 projects in every corner of the United Kingdom. More than 30 million people all over the country have engaged with these brand new art works and events. The artist-led programme has developed new ways to engage people in national moments, and will leave an important legacy – especially in connecting millions of young people today with the First World War.
Photo: Dr Blighty by Nutkhut. Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, Brighton Festival and Royal Pavilion & Museums Brighton & Hove, 2016 © Tabatha Fireman/Getty Images
POPPIES TOUR
LEARNING PROGRAMME
PARTICIPATION & REACH
MAJOR MOMENTS
By the end of 2018, 14-18 NOW will have taken Poppies: Wave and Weeping Window, by artist Paul Cummins and designer Tom Piper, to 19 locations right across the UK. These two iconic sculptures have so far been seen by more than 3.5 million people, attracting diverse audiences and bringing generations together.
Our learning programme has prioritised innovation in education across the UK. Working with our arts and heritage partners, we have presented a rich range of learning and engagement projects, deepening public understanding of the war and drawing young people closer to the events of a century ago.
Projects such as LIGHTS OUT, LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER and We’re here because we’re here have pioneered new ways of marking national moments through the arts. Our Armistice commemorations in November will mark the end of the war and bring this ambitious programme to a close.
Photo © Getty Images
Photo: LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER
We’re here because we’re here, Jeremy Deller and Rufus Norris’ astonishing modern memorial to those who died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, reached 63% of the UK population. Featuring 2,000 volunteers and presented in association with 27 theatres working together for the first time, We’re here because we’re here was a profoundly moving experience for audience and participants alike.
Photo © Ewa Hertzog
Photo: We’re here because we’re here 64—65
TEAM & BOARD
THANK YOU
TEAM
DEVELOPMENT ADVISORY GROUP
Jenny Waldman, CBE, Director Nigel Hinds Executive Producer Sud Basu Producer Linda Bernhardt Producer Alice Boff Senior Development Manager Gemma Brown Executive Assistant Tamsin Dillon Curator Francesca Duncan Administrative Assistant Emma Dunton Producer Claire Eva Brand & Communications Director Sarah Goodfellow Producer Chloe Morley Programme & Communications Officer Morag Small Head of Development Isabelle Taylor Development Officer Nadia Vistisen Events & External Relations Manager Pak Ling Wan General Manager
David Isaac, CBE, Co-Chair MT Rainey, OBE, Co-Chair Jeremy Bennett Patrick Handley Clive Jones, CBE Lady Emma Kitchener, OBE Rhoda Macdonald David Potter Christophe Rust General Sir Richard Shirreff, KCB, CBE Jean-Michel Steg Sir Richard Trainor, KBE
ArtsMediaPeople Learning Bolton & Quinn Press & PR The Cogency Marketing The Unloved Design Stacey Wright Digital PR PRESIDENT Lady Sainsbury of Turville, CBE BOARD Vikki Heywood, CBE, Chairman Ade Adepitan, MBE Alex Beard, CBE Lord Hall of Birkenhead David Isaac, CBE Diane Lees, CBE Rhoda Macdonald Tim Marlow John Mathers Clare Pillman MT Rainey, OBE Sir Anthony Seldon Jenny Waldman, CBE ARTISTIC ADVISORS Lavinia Greenlaw Nigel Hinds Ruth Mackenzie, CBE Michael Morris Tessa Ross, CBE Cian Smyth
PRINCIPAL FUNDERS
PROGRAMME SUPPORTERS
ARTIST AMBASSADORS Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, MBE Malorie Blackman Kate Charlesworth Lee Child Paul Cummins, MBE Jeremy Deller Sebastian Faulks, CBE Bonnie Greer, OBE Margaret MacMillan, OC Chloe Dewe Mathews Rufus Norris Tom Piper, MBE Kamila Shamsie Owen Sheers Posy Simmonds Richard Wentworth ROYAUME-UNI
HONORARY COMMISSIONING CIRCLE Dame Vivien Duffield, DBE
Mark Pigott, KBE
Lady Sainsbury of Turville, CBE
Tim Bunting Nigel Hinds & Judith Ackrill Gailen Krug Christophe Rust & Hillevi Gillanders Sir David Verey, CBE
Melanie Gee David Isaac, CBE Kate Nelson Best Sir Anthony & Lady Joanna Seldon Jacqueline & Richard Worswick
Nicholas & Jane Ferguson Midge & Simon Palley
Tony McCallum Jenny Waldman, CBE & Richard Bull
COMMISSIONING CIRCLE Peter & Alison Bennett-Jones Vikki Heywood, CBE & Clive Jones, CBE Larissa Joy MT Rainey, OBE Jean-Michel & Diane Steg 2 anonymous donors
INDIVIDUAL SUPPORTERS Adam & Noreen Cleal Rupert & Elizabeth Nabarro
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All information in this brochure is correct as of March 2018. For updates, booking information and news of a few other surprises still to be announced, along with details of all our previous projects, please visit 1418NOW.org.uk and sign up to our newsletter.
1418NOW.org.uk Follow us on Twitter @1418NOW Like us on Facebook 1418NOW Follow us on Instagram @1418NOW Watch us on YouTube 1418NOW
Photo above: Memories of August 1914 by Royal de Luxe. Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and Liverpool City Council, 2014. Photo Š Pete Carr Photo opposite: Audiences at spectra by Ryoji Ikeda, produced by Artangel. Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and The Mayor of London, 2014. Photo Š Will Eckersley
14-18 NOW is an independent programme hosted within Imperial War Museums 14-18 NOW, IWM, Lambeth Road, London SE1 6HZ