Wave
When I heard the ceramic poppies exhibition called “The Wave” was coming to Salford, I was very keen to see it, as I had missed all its other exhibitions. Yesterday proved to be the first non-rainy day for quite some time, so we decided to go down to the Quays during the afternoon, to have a look.
Wave and Weeping Window
“Wave” and its sister exhibition “Weeping Window” are two individual parts of the original exhibition of ceramic poppies called “Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red”. That exhibition was held at the Tower of London in the summer and autumn of 2014 and comprised a sea of poppies, each one planted by a volunteer “in memory of every British or Colonial life lost at the Front during the First World War.” Many poppies were sold off after the event. The two exhibitions are coming to the end of their tour around the UK, with the “Wave” shown at Imperial War Museum North at Salford and “Weeping Window” at the IWM London, both until November.
The art installation
The installation makes excellent use of the contours of the building, but is situated on the north facing side, away from the sun. From a distance it doesn’t look very prominent. However, because it was such a bright day, there was enough reflected light to enable me to achieve reasonable exposures close up…and I created a number of compositions, some of which I have selected to make into a gallery.
I suppose I only had about half an hour there and the area was so busy that it was necessary to be patient to capture images. I will try to get back another time to see what else I can “tease” out of the display and it just needs the perfect “spectator”, in just the right place, to create a narrative.
