Recent Mail Art in for the month of May

Posted on May 31, 2014 by theresaeaston

Mail Art posted to me during the month of May 2014 has been contributed by artists, makers and mail artists from around the world.

Gail Halvorsen

South African based Petrolpetal‘s latest contribution is a book for the young people, ‘The Chocolate Flier’ narrating the story of the American pilot Gail Halvorsen, who responded to the deprivations and plight of children in Berlin in 1948 by showering waiting children with mini-parachutes containing sweets and chocolate. The book explains the Berlin Airlift and the response of American civilians and pilots to the children who survived the allied bombing, although how and why the country was bombed back to the stoneage is not really touched upon. What the book does do is expose a human response to the suffering by many.

Contrast this with French based Val Herman’s playful take on a child’s rhyme ‘Sticks & Stones will break my Bones But Mail Art will not hurt me!’

Eni Ilis, form Brazil meanwhile has posted an intriguing blue tinged collage.

Jane Kennelly, shares a Souvenir from France made up of a collection of poems reflecting on loss and family.

Lastly, sent some time back, but left off the list is a collection of Chap Book like zines from Italian based Mail Artist Serse Rocchi, his zines are a bombardment of contemporary culture and historical relics, collaged, pasted and juxtaposed next to each other. The reader works hard to connect the seemingly random images of cultural debris.

Serse Luigetti

Steve Dales Great Uncle Oliver

Posted on May 15, 2014 by theresaeaston

Steve Dales Great Uncle Oliver

WW1 commemorations brings to light a whole host of family memories, research and stories.

Steve Dales came across family history stuff on his Great Uncle Oliver. He survived the war and went to live in Australia where he died in 1984. His research shows a Certificate of Disembodiment on Demobilisation 30th June 1919. Handwritten documentation such as this has particular significance compared to the arms-length. computer processed lead paper work we have all become so used to.

Britain in 1919 was experiencing an extreme flu epidemic, along with the rest of the world – the epidemic was rumoured to have killed between 50-100 million people. It was named the Spanish flu, this originated from a news blackout instigated by wartime censors controlling reports of the epidemic in Germany, France & USA. Spain at the time was labelled as neutral and the grave illness of the King there was one of the few reports passing the censors.

Other Mail Art in for May includes an ‘African’ inspired design work by E Coles and more Brain Cell Life Form from Ryosuke Cohen.

E Coles

Ryosuke Cohen

1914-2014 Mail Art Project by Guido Vermeulen.

Posted on May 13, 2014 by theresaeaston

Faces of War
Guido Vermeulen

Guido Vermeulen is a prolific Mail Artist and has recently launched a parallel Mail Art project.

1914 – 2014 :

RESIST 100 YEARS OF WAR

This mail art project is not in opposition or competition but in support of the existing mail art project on the anniversary of the so-called « great » war.

So we support and encourage the efforts of Jan Theunink and Paul Verhulst in Belgium, those of Theresa Easton in the UK and the Hungarian project (a collaboration between networkers in Hungary, Germany and Austria, the world will follow). We also salute the incredible individual efforts of artists like Eric Bensidon and Alain Cotten in France and Otto Sherman in the USA.

THE MAIL ART PROJECT WE PROPOSE is based on

° the refusal of war as a destruction of people’s common togetherness and solidarity

War was conducted by those who did not know eacht other for the bank accounts of those who knew each other quite well (to paraphrase Valéry)

° the refusal of any kind of war nostalgia or the recuperation of so-called peace by institutions like the EC or the UN (who have no problem launching new wars « in the name of peace and freedom»)

° the backing of a total rehabilitation for all soldiers who were executed by their own commanders and governments « as example », with excuses as cowardice, or desertion, or you have lost your equipment and other nonsens

° the backing of independent historical research on what happened during these « great » wars

You can fill in yourself other angles of interests, the list is limitless

FREE SIZE AND MEDIUM

NO DEADLINE

This project is proposed by mail artist Guido Vermeulen with the support of FRIOUR NETWORK MAGAZINE and a new Circle of Free Thought in Belgium : CLP-KVD

Documentation online in a special section on the blog of the CLP-KVD

http://clp-kvd.blogspot.be/search/label/9.%20MAIL%20ART%201914-2014%20PROJECT

Mail your contributions to

1914 2014 PROJECT

Guido Vermeulen

Thomas Vinçottestreet 81

B-1030 Brussels

BELGIUM

Faces of War
Guido Vermeulen

100 years First World War: Lay Down Your Weapon!

Posted on April 30, 2014 by theresaeaston

Sent to me by Astrid Jahns, based in Germany 100 years First World War: Lay Down Your Weapon! is a foundation based in Stuttgart. The Foundation is interested in artistic interpretations of WW1 and organised a call out for submissions of posters addressing the theme. Further details can be downloaded HERE

Recent Mail Art in from Robyn Foster based in Queensland Australia, draws attention to the sense of loss experienced by those left behind during war and conflict. The wedding images take on a macabre and sinister role as the figure of the man is altered and obliterated by war.

Robyn Foster

Other mail art in includes work by Ukraine based mail artist Lubomyr Timkiv. His work is very poignant and has echoes of the current situation in Ukraine.

The scissors signifying the potential tearing apart of a country.

Lubomyr organises exhibitions of Mail Art and contemporary art in his garage gallery in Lviv.

Lviv

Closer to home Marie-Christine De Grave in Belgium delivers images and text reflecting the industrial scale and devastation of the war, with an image of an unknown soldier, raising questions to his identity and thoughts of the many who died.

Marie-Christine de Grave

Lastly, Brazil base Celestial Scribe, takes on the task of understanding the history of the bombardment in Hartlepool December 16th 1914, with his light hearted approach to an traditional ‘English’ image.

Mail Art in for April

Posted on April 19, 2014 by theresaeaston

Public Lecture: Collecting Stories of the First World War: Europeana 1914-1918 and The Oxford Community Collection Model (24 April 2014)

Posted on April 18, 2014 by theresaeaston

Digital Histories: Advanced Skills for Historians

with Alun Edwards (Oxford University Academic IT Services)

Date: 24 April 2014

Start: 17.30

Venue: Northumbria University, Newcastle, City Campus East, CCE1-003

Postcard sent from Newcastle. Image © Jennifer Bangs via The Great War Archive, University of Oxford http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa

In this public lecture, Alun Edwards (Oxford University Academic IT Services) will present some of the most remarkable findings from the Europeana 1914-18 collection from all over Europe including items from Newcastle and the North East. For years, community groups, libraries, museums and archives all over Europe have collected the largest available collection of items relating to the First World War. The result of this enormous collective effort are over 400,000 digitised images of artworks, photographs and official documents as well as over 650 hours of films from museums, libraries and archives from across Europe (including The Imperial War Museum and the British Library). All of which are now freely available…

View original post 177 more words

Elizabethville – Birtley’s Belgiums

Posted on April 18, 2014 by theresaeaston

A film shown at a BridgesNorthEast event in April 2014 @Hartlepool Maritime Experience about The Belgians of Birtley – the story of Munitions Production in WW1 download HERE

The story starts in the early stages of World War I, when Britain at last realised that its armaments were no match in either effectiveness or numbers for those being put to horribly efficient use by a fully modernised German Army. Indeed, so bad were things as far as ammunition was concerned that the Commander in Chief of the British Army, Lord French, had apparently had to order at least some of the big guns at the front to fire no more than ten shells per day, in order to conserve ammunition! When the news of this, the great Shell Scandal, was leaked, in March 1915, the Asquith government had no option but to resign immediately.

The new Government of National Unity at once appointed David LLoyd George as their new Minister of Munitions, and his department set about building munitions factories all over the country, including one next to the little village of Birtley in County Durham, just south of Newcastle upon Tyne, commissioning Armstrong-Whitworth of Tyneside to construct and run it, along with a neighbouring cartridge factory. One large problem arose, however – finding people to work in them, seeing that most British munitions workers were by now at the front, while most of the female workforce was already in employment in other factories.

Links:

http://www.birtley-elisabethville.be

http://collections.beamish.org.uk/pages/elisabethville

In memory of the 3.700,000 Women Munitionettes

Posted on April 14, 2014 by theresaeaston

Siobhan Tarr presents a thought provoking response with her mosaic like homage to the 3.700,000 women who entered the Workforce during WW1 including those who worked at the National Shell Filling Factory Number 9 on the outskirts of Banbury.

Siobhan Tarr, Germany

”Risking their health and their lives, working in munitions factories, women were often called canary girls. because of their yellow skin – the result of repeated exposure to TNT. Some even gave birth to yellow canary babies.”

Siobhan Tarr will work with a group of young people in Lauenburg in Germany, as part of a interdisciplinary history / art project, initiated in 2012 by the Heimatbund und Geschichtsverein Herzogtum Lauenburg (Lauenburg native and historical society) and its co-operation partner Lauenburg Art Association. This year the young people will be investigating Volkstrauertag and the questions it raises. This is the annual German national day of mourning, commemorating those from all countries, military and civilian, who have died either in or as a result of armed conflicts. They will look at the theme of WW1 local stories, interviewing old people and looking into local archives and records etc. Using the information they collect and with reference to their own place in this legacy, the youths in Lauenburg will work from a German perspective in an attempt to relay this to the young people of Hartlepool and beyond using Mail art. For young people worldwide, it is an excellent opportunity to actively share differing perspectives and interpretations in regard to the legacy of war. Siobhan Tarr

Otto Sherman, is a prolific maker of Stamp Art, medals and cancellation art, with sometimes contradictory sinister and playful motifs reoccurring in his work. He has forwarded on pages of Stamp art that I will pass onto the young peopl in Hartlepool to use – when the time comes! And include in my own Mail Art prodcutions.

Otto Sherman

Mail Art in for March & April

Posted on April 9, 2014 by theresaeaston

Mail Art in from some young people in Whitley Bay and a beautiful envelope designed by Madeleine, aged 12 who includes a poem by Wilfred Owen, Anthem for Doomed Youth.

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.