OTHER RANKS

Thursday 1 November until July 2013
Leeds
10am – 5pm daily
Free entry

Sound artist, Amie Slavin, brings the multi-sensory, sound-based installation, Other Ranks, to the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds this November.

Other Ranks is a project aiming to bring to life the role of “squaddies” serving in the British Army and to honour their heroism and sacrifices.

The installation will feature current and ex-soldiers’ stories, played out of 16 speakers, interspersed with extracts from written sources. These will range from classic fiction and well-known poetry, running alongside the sound of endless marching feet.

The floor will be converted into a never-ending mass of photographs – some soldiers and others the mothers, the sisters and the children. They are all the victims of war; nobody is exempt; the floor is covered with pictures of humanity; those who can be shot, bombed, or suffer the horrors of disease or bereavement.

Empty boots will also stand in the space, as a further reminder of the people, mostly men, who have worn the footwear and made that ultimate sacrifice for their country. Just how many boots have been left standing empty, through the generations?

How many of us ever really consider the human cost, through the centuries, for a hundred, a thousand, half a million troops to be killed in the various theatres of war? Each broken body is the culmination of a person’s life, hopes and dreams.

Other Ranks raises the question of whether these men are a breed apart – or ordinary people, stepping up to do an extraordinary job?

We honour and commemorate the lives lost in wars – the officers, the civilians and, centrally, the ever-marching Other Ranks.

Tickets

FREE

For more information about Other Ranks and Artist Amie Slavin visit her website