Pupils at Sibford School near Banbury will mark Armistice Day by receiving a unique insight into a ground-breaking augmented reality exhibition which opens at The Martin Luther King Museum in Liverpool later this month to coincide with the 100-year anniversary of the end of The Battle of the Somme.
The Danger Tree is an exhibition of 15 paintings inspired by the works of legendary World War One poets including Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Rupert Brooke. Each image triggers augmented reality layers of hidden reference beneath the surface of the painting and is typically made up of 10,000 photographs of the canvas capturing every daub of paint as it has been laid down.
The exhibition has been created by Scarlett Raven, who has painted the images, and Marc Marot, who has created the integrated animations and digital art. Leading British actors including Christopher Eccleston, Sean Bean, Gemma Arteton and Sophie Okonedo have provided the soundtrack to the images.
Marc, whose daughter Grace is a pupil at Sibford, will be visiting the school on Friday to talk about the exhibition and to bring in some prints of the paintings for pupils to view.
“I’ll be talking about the poems behind the pictures, the messages they portray and the reason for the name of the exhibition, The Danger Tree, which is particularly interesting,” said Marc. “I’ll also be talking about my Grandfather, Eddie Bigwood, who is featured in two of the paintings. He survived the duration of the great war and, even though terribly wounded, was sent to fight in Ypres. He lived to the age of 98 and told me every story, which inspired a lifelong interest in the subject. We take no sides, only look at the huge waste of life on both sides.”
Anna-Jo Lawrence, Director of Studies at Sibford School said: “We really look forward to Marc’s talk on Friday. As a Quaker School our commitment is to peace but it is important that, especially at this time of year, we remember the conflicts that have taken place and aim to foster an understanding that there are alternatives. Learning about The Danger Tree will help pupils to think in a different way about conflict and World War One in particular.”