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The Imperial War Museum ±«Óãtv Radio 3 Remembrance Debate 2020

What does it mean to make art to commemorate conflict? Anne McElvoy speaks to artists Es Devlin and Machiko Weston, and other guests responsible for commissioning public art.

What does it mean to make art to commemorate histories of conflict? Anne McElvoy's guests are artists Es Devlin and Machiko Weston, Art Fund director Jenny Waldman, chair of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group Ekow Eshun and Paris Agar from the IWM as Radio 3 joins with the Imperial War Museum for the 2020 Remembrance Debate.

Es Devlin and Machiko Weston worked together on a digital artwork commission to mark the 75th anniversary of Hiroshima. What images and words were appropriate to use?
https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/i-saw-the-world-end

1,600 volunteers, all men, dressed in replica World War I British army uniforms, and appeared on station platforms and public spaces across the UK in Jeremy Deller's artwork We're Here Because We're Here. That was on of the many projects commissioned by Jenny Waldman as part of 14-18 NOW, the UK's official arts programme for the First World War Centenary.

Ekow Eshun is chair of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group and creative director of the Calvert 22 Foundation.

Paris Agar is an art curator on the Cold War and Late 20th Century team at the IWM who worked on the What Remains, Culture Under Attack programming and projects to mark the Fall of the Berlin Wall anniversary.

You can find on the Free Thinking website a collection of programmes exploring war through power, peace negotiations, trees, spying, poetry and memory. Margaret MacMillan, Jonathan Powell, Naoko Shimazu, Kamila Shamsie, William Boyd, Elleke Boehmer /programmes/p06kgbyb
It also includes previous IWM Debates looking at the role of silence with the Reverend Lucy Winkett, Neil Bartlett, Peter Hitchens and Prof Steve Brown /programmes/m00011hq
Peter Bazalgette, Zahed Tajeddinm Rebecca Newell and Carrie Reichardt looking at who decides what's worth saving? /programmes/m000b14m

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Available now

44 minutes

Broadcast

  • Wed 11 Nov 2020 22:00

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