Lifesize silhouetted figures representing the 255 British military personnel and three civilians who lost their lives in the Falklands war have been installed on the parade ground and ramparts at Fort Nelson in Portsmouth.
The art installation, Standing With Giants, was created to mark the 40th anniversary of the conflict and its arrival in the Hampshire port is regarded as particularly poignant as so many of the British ships left and returned there.
Andy Gatherer, who was a 19-year-old marine engineer and mechanic on HMS Glamorgan during the conflict, was one of the first to view the installation on Thursday. He said: “It’s fabulous. It grabs you as you walk around the corner and see the silhouettes.”
Gatherer, 60, said it reminded him of the sailors he knew that lost their lives in the conflict. “That’s very personal to me. It brings back a lot of memories. We had to bury them at sea so to have something tangible here is very powerful.”
Standing With Giants is a community project set up by the Oxfordshire artist Dan Barton and a group of local volunteers. They create large-scale art installations using recycled building materials.
To complement the art installation, Fort Nelson is staging an exhibition – Falklands 40: What Portsmouth Saw – which tells some of the personal stories of homecomings to Portsmouth after the conflict. The show features images from the local paper the News, footage from BBC South, interviews with local veterans, as well as a display of guns used in the conflict.
Fort Nelson’s public engagement manager, Lizzie Puddick, said: “We are honoured to host this art installation and think it will be a striking reminder of how many lives were lost in the Falklands conflict.
“The Falklands affected a lot of our local community in Portsmouth and Hampshire, so Fort Nelson seems a fitting place for Standing With Giants to be on display.”
Barton said: “We have been overwhelmed by the amazing reactions from veterans and families of the fallen who have visited our installations. The installations seem to connect with people and evoke emotion.
“Our ethos is to value life, to understand and appreciate why we have our freedom, and to remember and pay tribute to those who have fallen so we can live the lives we have today – Standing With Giants is a great way of using art to do this.”
