Sutherland Shire Libraries Staff News

Anyone who has spent more than five minutes in my company will be aware of my - let's call it what it is - obsession with military history, in particular Australia's involvement in the First World War.

Wine of victory, Will Dyson, 1918.

And so, with the 100 year anniversary of this conflict well upon us, I, like many others in Australia, have watched and absorbed with interest, admiration and occasionally bewilderment and perplexity the abundance of means and formats through which the centenary has and is being commemorated and analysed. There has been no shortage of TV documentaries and dramas; exhibitions and information sessions; services and events; academic monographs and books for kids; each endeavouring to frame a new perspective and to make sense of the First World War, its outcomes and what, if anything, it means to us today - some with greater success and clarity than others. 

The Art Gallery of NSW has thrown its hat into the ring with a restrained and yet compelling exhibition of Australian war art entitled, Mad through the darkness: Australian artists and the Great War. On display are works from the Gallery's collection featuring artists such as Will Dyson, George Lambert, Arthur Streeton, Sidney Nolan, Roy de Maistre, and the little-known (although she should be) Evelyn Chapman who was 'the first female Australian artist to visit Europe's First World War battlefields.' Curator, Andrew Yip, conceded that the Art Gallery does not have a great history of commemorating war. In fact, many of the Dyson prints have not been on public display since 1942!

To coincide with this exhibition, the Art Gallery of NSW assembled a group of Australian and Turkish academics for the Gallipoli Gelibolu Symposium with the aim to 'explore the impact of that event on Australian and Turkish art, architecture and material culture and to critically assess the role of visual culture in mediating the conflict's significance within both polities.' It was my very great honour to attend this significant, innovative and inspiring event at the AGNSW on Friday 22 May 2015 at which nine knowledgeable and passionate speakers presented their fascinating and stimulating papers. I would be happy to share the notes I collated from the symposium with anyone interested. But in brief the speakers were as follows:

• Andrew Yip (Art Gallery of NSW and the University of NSW) defined 'Anzac' as the avatar of Australian national identity for the past one hundred years and 'Gallipoli' as the point of departure for Australia's contribution to warfare. He examined the recent efforts to challenge and diversify the masculine record of war and queried whether these were corrections or re-enfranchisements. Yip then looked at ways we can re-examine the representation of the Gallipoli story during this centenary period.
• Gizem Tongo (Oxford University) is a Turkish academic who looked at the histiography of the First World War from her homeland's perspective and then compared and contrasted the manner in which both Turkey and Australia have presented the story of Gallipoli through art. Australia has embraced the romantic image of the bushman/digger and so too has Turkey welcomed the brave peasant fighting for his homeland as the nationalist ideal. In both cases the Gallipoli story is intrinsically linked with the legend of the respective 'births of a nation'.
• Esra Akcan (Cornell University), also from Turkey, spoke of the significance of memorials in society and questioned whether they are complicit with war memories or counter-memories and the constant return to the themes of perpetual war and perpetual peace. Akcan identified the shift from triumphalist to apologetic memorials following the genocide of Jews during World War II and the return to the triumphal in the wake of 9/11 (see Libeskind's 'Freedom Tower' in New York).

  Australian artillery in action, Gallipoli, A.A. Evans

• Helen Ennis (Australian National University) and Shaune Lakin (National Gallery of Australia) each presented papers on the importance of photography during the First World War. Ennis looked at the development of both aerial and snapshot photography during this period, whilst Lakin examined the mythological and allegorical connotations of A.A. Evans's famous photograph of the Australian artillery in action at Gallipoli and its role in immortalising the idea of the digger as the image of physical perfection and ingenuity.
• Ryan Johnson (Australian War Memorial) and Anne Brennan (Australian National University) examined the changing interpretations and functions of specific items within the collections at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. With Wallace Anderson's sculpture, 'Evacuation' as his subject (and one which received a strong critical response in both the Turkish and Australian media recently) Johnson queried how a collection can translate from the material to the online once removed from its physical context. Brennan reflected on the removal from the upgraded First World War Galleries of the large relief maps of the Gallipoli Peninsula and how this may affect our understanding of the terrain.

  Rayner Hoff's Sacrifice, Anzac Memorial. Author's image.

• Brad Manera (Anzac Memorial, Hyde Park, Sydney) stated that Australian war art, notably Lambert's paintings of the landing and the Battle of the Nek, have informed our historic views of Gallipoli. How will the custodians of the Anzac Memorial inform future generations' understanding of the Australian wartime experience? Manera believes in making connections through the personal stories, documents and ephemera of individual soldiers. Without doubt the highlight of the conference for me was the opportunity to hold a small card written by Lance Corporal Jack Harris to his mother, sending her love and best wishes. It was immensely painful to try to imagine the grief she would have felt when she received it. The card was found on the body of her son after he was killed in the Battle of Lone Pine. He was just 15 years old.
• The final speaker of the day was Steve Miller (Art Gallery of NSW) who enlightened us on the life and work of Ballarat-born sculptress, Dora Ohlfsen, who created one of the first iconographic works to commemorate the Anzacs.