What's not going on?

Imperial War Museum - February 2018

I wanted to visit the Imperial War Museum out of curiosity to see how an institution like this would present whatever it was they were trying to present. I wondered what the purpose of this place was and wondered whether they would glorify war or normalise it. I didn't really know what to expect, although I did expect to have mixed feelings about the experience.

The Imperial War Museum was founded in 1917 and the original aim was 'to collect and display material as a record of everyone’s experiences during that war - civilian and military - and to commemorate the sacrifices of all sections of society'. Most of the exhibits are from conflicts over the last 100 years.

I started in the shop. Lots of plastic fighter jets for the kids, CND earrings for the fashion conscious and lots of 1940s nostalgia in the form of tea towels, mugs and other expensive kitchenalia.

Then, in the atrium, you see this...

Baghdad, March 5th 2007

This is a car which was destroyed in a suicide attack in a busy marketplace in Baghdad in March 2007. It was used in an exhibition, which travelled across America in 2009, by artist Jeremy Deller. It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq. No-one was in the car at the time it was bombed. Still, it's quite shocking to see.

The Imperial War Museum is mainly publicly funded through the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. I have tried researching who else sponsors it but didn't get very far. On the IWM corporate partnership page there is a photo of corporate sponsors having a black tie dinner right next to the bombed out car.

The first floor has WW2 exhibits. One of the first things you see is the 1938 Anglo-German declaration... Not really worth the paper it was written on, maybe it's easier with hindsight to realise that Hitler couldn't be trusted.

The Anglo-German Declaration, 30 September 1938

A child's gas mask

An Enigma Machine

Jolly boat from the SS Anglo-Saxon

This boat was used as a lifeboat when the SS Anglo-Saxon, a cargo ship carrying coal from Wales to Argentina, was sunk by a German ship in August 1940. 7 men set out on this boat after the attack. After 70 days and 2,800 miles only 2 men survived, the others having succumbed to injuries sustained in the attack or committing suicide in desperation by drowning. On 30 October 1940 the two survivors landed on the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas.

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30017960

Japanese fighter pilot's mask

Reuters Landrover - Hit by a rocket from an Israeli helicopter in Gaza in 2006

The story is here - https://www.iwm.org.uk/events/witnesses-to-war

Korean propaganda aimed at American soldiers

Handmade Noah's ark set made by a Prisoner of War and sent home to his little girl.

This model of Noah's ark and animals was made from cigar boxes by a prisoner of war during the second world war for his daughter. This was probably the one object in the whole museum that I found the most moving... and I couldn't help shedding a tear or two. I suppose many of the objects are just about war and power...and this one is about love.

Silent Protest - Pack of anti-war playing cards by Bill Drummond 2002

These cards were designed by Bill Drummond as a protest to the invasion of Afghanistan. The idea was to use the cards whilst joining in a day of silence in protest at the war.
More info here... http://klf.de/home/?s=silent+protest

This metal barrel was dug up at Berchtesgaden, having originally held some of Hitler's secret papers.

WW1 Dazzle ship models

WW1 uniforms

The Imperial War Museum is a strange place. I started writing this a long time ago and never finished it... until now. I do have mixed feelings about the Imperial War Museum. I enjoyed being there in a funny way but I probably like to indulge in the melancholy a little too much and there's plenty of that here. But I also had a weird slightly guilty voyeuristic feeling. You can't help but think of the immense suffering of people caused by war and many of the objects here are the cause of that suffering. Everything is presented in quite a detached way. You are left to make your own mind up which feels a bit like you're colluding in something.