“We are honored to host this art installation and believe it will be a striking reminder of how many lives were lost in the Falklands conflict. Las Malvinas affected a large part of our local community in Portsmouth and Hampshire, hence fort nelson looks like an appropriate place to display Standing With Giants”, declared Lizzie Puddickcoordinator of public spaces of Fort Nelson, to the British portal The Guardian.
Life-size figures with silhouettes representing the 255 British servicemen and three civilians who lost their lives in the war from the Falklands were installed on the parade ground and walls of Fort Nelson in Portsmouth. The art installation, ‘Standing With Giants’, was created to mark the 40th anniversary of the conflict and their arrival in the Hampshire port is considered particularly poignant as many of the British ships left and returned there.
Andy Gatherer, was a 19-year-old mechanical and marine engineer at the HMS Glamorgan during the conflict and was one of the first guests to see the installation on Thursday, April 20. “It’s fabulous. It catches you when you walk around the corner and see the silhouettes. That’s very personal to me. It brings back memories. We had to bury them at sea, so having something tangible here is very powerful,” the 60-year-old war veteran told the English media.
“Standing With Giants” is a community project produced by the artist Dan Barton and a group of local volunteers. The work is constituted in various large-scale art installations using recycled construction materials. “We are overwhelmed by the amazing reactions from the veterans and families of the fallen who have visited our facilities. The installations seem to connect with people and evoke emotions,” Barton stated.
To complement the art installation, Fort Nelson is hosting an exhibit, “Falklands 40: What Portsmouth Saw”, which tells some of the personal stories of coming home to Portsmouth after the conflict. The program features images from the local newspaper The Newsimages of BBC Southinterviews with local veterans, as well as an exhibition of weapons used in the conflict.
“Our ethos is to value life, to understand and appreciate why we have our freedom, and to remember and pay tribute to those who have fallen so that we can live the life we have today – Standing With Giants is a great way to use art to make this.”, the British artist thoughtfully concluded.
by RN
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