The South African Delville Wood Memorial in the Somme, France
On July 12, 2016, I received news from my friend Lloyd Coutts, that a mixed media pastel painting on Fabriano had been accepted into the Delville Wood Memorial in France.
I have for many years wanted to establish some artistic connection to the WW1 battlefields of the Somme which have always fascinated me in many respects, most notably that we must never allow our collective memory to forget what horrors can be unleashed on humanity by bloodymindedness and hunger for power.
Another facet of this fascination lies with the resurgence of nature covering the appalling scars of battle. If the casual observer has no knowledge of what happened in these areas a century ago, there would hardly be any indication of what momentous events in the lives of people and nations played out here.
Dr Alain Tschudin executive director of Good Governance Africa (left) and Thapedi Masanabo, manager-curator of Delville Wood Museum.
