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Many schools make a study of Remembrance either as a one-off short-term project in early November each year or as an aspect of a wider study of War and Conflict throughout the twentieth century. Almost every school in the UK is situated within a short distance of a war memorial of some kind, whether that be a major one in a large city or town or a much smaller memorial in a village or in local church.
The Gallery contains many photographs of monuments and memorials from sites throughout Britain and also from sites in other countries. These can be used in many different ways. Here are some ideas of how you might use these in your teaching of history and citizenship.
1. Look at how the style of memorials has changed very much over the last century. Consider two of the memorials listed below
- The Royal Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner dedicated to casualties in the British Royal Regiment of Artillery in World War I (resource No.664351)
- The New Zealand War memorial also at Hyde Park Corner in London dedicated to people from New Zealand who died in the First and Second World Wars (resource No.664379)
- The Commonwealth memorial gates, London commemorate the armed forces of the British Empire from five regions of the Indian subcontinent (resource No.664246)
What are the major differences in style between these two monuments? How do they differently represent the idea of loss in conflict? What do they use to represent those who have been lost? Which works better do you think and why?
2. We can also find memorials to civilians who have lost their lives in conflicts and some examples are included below. How do these differ from the memorials which are built to honour the military dead of the many conflicts of the last century or so? What do you think the designers of these monuments were trying to say by the way they built them? Is the message clear? Is it supposed to be clear or is it intended to let us interpret it in our own way? What do you think?
- The London Bombings Memorial is intended to act as a permanent tribute to the Londoners who lost their lives when travelling by Tube or bus on 7th July 2005 (resource No.664256)
- The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe at the heart of the city of Berlin is a huge memorial to all of those who lost their lives during the Holocaust. it consists of 2711 concrete slabs (resource No.669196)
- Memorial to the Bali Victims of terror opened in October 2006 (resource No. 65552)
3. There many photos of monuments and memorials in the gallery. Search through the collection and have a look at a wide range of them. Now choose a particular memorial that you think makes the biggest and best impact as far as you are concerned. What do you like about it and how does it work for you? What are the features that stand out for you? What is it trying to represent and how does it do it?
4. Choose a conflict from the last 100 years and design a memorial to honour those who died. There are many questions for you to ask yourself before you commit your design to paper.
- Is there a very specific group you wish to remember? Is it soldiers, airmen, sailors? Remember that there many monuments to very specific groups such as the Women of World War 2 monument in Whitehall (resource No.664209). There are even mouments to the animals who served in the world wars.
- What material do you want to make your memorial out of? Stone, glass, wood, metal, concrete or another material? Is it going to be situated inside or outside - this may make a difference to your choice.
- What will be the style of your memorial? Will it be very realistic, featuring human figures, soldiers in uniform and with weapons like the Royal Artillery memorial or will it be much more representative of an idea like the Canadian War Memorial (resource No.664237) or the London Bombings Memorial (resource No.664256) or might it try to tell a big story like the Battle of Britain Memorial on the Embankment (resource No. 664179)?
- Where will you situate your memorial? In the middle of a noisy, bustling city where lots of people will se eit every day or in a quiet, peaceful park? Or somewhere else perhaps?
- Will your memorial include any text and if so what will it say? Or will you let the memorial speak for itself, allowing people to interpret it in the way they want to?
5. Choose a memorial from the many represented here in the Gallery and use E2BNs Picture Teller tool - http://tools.e2bn.org - to create a presentation about your chosen monument. This will allow you to select a single picture or a number of different images and place them on a timeline. You can zoom in on them or pan around them and then add your own voiceover to narrate the show. There is an example below of the kind of thing that you could do. Click the link below to view an example about the Battle of Britain Memorial.
http://tools.e2bn.org/pictureteller/player/player.swf?xml_name=brendan%20bobm
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