This year marks the centenary of the Battle of the Somme. On the first day alone, July 1st 1916, 19,240 British soldiers were killed in one of the bloodiest battles in human history. In the course of the whole battle, millions lost their lives. Somerset artist Rob Heard wanted to begin to understand the enormity of that number – 19240.
How can you begin to understand the loss of life on this scale? Rob’s approach has been to singlehandedly create 19420 individually shrouded figures. Rob has hand-stitched each of The Somme 19240 shrouds. The bulk of these was made in 2015. He is now placing 19240 figures in the shrouds, each unique, each individual, crossing the name off of each soldier as he goes.
Rob Heard Artist
Rob lives in a remote part of Somerset near Watchet – and from a specially constructed shack in his garden, he creates the artwork. We used our super slo-mo camera to capture the detail of the stitching and the concentration required in Rob’s face. Our new Oslo – steady cam was also used to add to the atmosphere that we created in the film. The repetitive narrative of the film reflects the repetitive nature of creating a piece of art on this scale.
A memorial event is to be held on July 1, 2016, where the 19,240 Shrouds of The Somme will be revealed for the first time, marking the centenary of the first day of the battle. Further details of this event will be published in the near future.
