Objects: Letters and correspondence.
Cartridge paper, debossed.
Inspired by a collection of correspondence from families of soldiers to Captain Hammond during the First World War, these letters speak of the grief and desperation of individuals affected by the conflict. They separate individual people from the institution of the army, adding names, stories and emotions to the casualty statistics.
These debossed works were made from a series of letters sent by Mrs. Skippon (and one by her vicar). They tell the story of grief of a mother trying to find information about her teenage son, who has gone missing. She has a desperate hope that he’s not dead, maybe just injured or even a prisoner of war, and she talks of wanting to know so she can send him his Christmas present. Percy Stanley Skippon was 19 when he went missing. He was eventually declared dead, having been killed the day he sent his mother his last letter.
