2014 Degree Show - Final Project - artist statement
Detail from 'Journey' by Terri H Harper (photo David Williams)
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Project title: Journey
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Ethel's diaries record how she set off alone, aged 27, on a 12-hour train journey to London, before embarking on the SS Beltana for Adelaide, where she secured work in domestic service. A year into her new life, the world found itself at war. Restless, and perhaps to lessen the guilt of being away from home at this critical time, she took herself off on a trek into the Outback. En route, her train derailed in the desert, but she eventually reached the tiny township of Oodnadatta and its outlying sheep stations, where she stayed for some time. Returning to the UK in 1918, she married, raised a family and moved to Jersey. But this settled period was not long lived: in 1939, World War Two broke out. Undefendable, the Channel Islands were abandoned to their fate and in 1940 the Nazis invaded. Ethel (now widowed) and her children, all mainland-born, were regarded as 'aliens' and in 1942 were deported, by boat then train, to Northern Germany. Her son Eric documented their ordeal. Ethel and her family spent the next two and a half years as prisoners-of-war. Repatriated in 1945, Ethel finally returned safely to Jersey where she lived quietly until her death in 1966.
Using photographs, journals and postcards from the family archive, key periods of Ethel's life are depicted in a series of panels. I use screen-printing, fusing, flame-working and glass collage to create an architectural sculpture, that also references the Edwardian pastime of decorating room screens with embossed 'scraps' (a form of decoupage).
Using photographs, journals and postcards from the family archive, key periods of Ethel's life are depicted in a series of panels. I use screen-printing, fusing, flame-working and glass collage to create an architectural sculpture, that also references the Edwardian pastime of decorating room screens with embossed 'scraps' (a form of decoupage).