Exhibition
From Wasteland to Wasteland
3 Feb 2018 – 25 Feb 2018
Event times
Tues - Sat 11am - 5pm
sun 12 noon - 4pm
Cost of entry
Free
Address
- 2 Lombard Street
- Margate
England - CT9 1EJ
- United Kingdom
Travel Information
- Close to main local bus routes
- 15 minute walk from Margate train station
Five Isle of Thanet artists showcase new work inspired by an event that happened over 100 years ago as they travel From Wasteland to Wasteland, exploring and connecting WW1, Margate and T S Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’.
About
On the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1916, Captain James Young of the 179th Tunnelling Company, Royal Engineers, detonated two explosive charges in tunnels dug through chalk from the British trenches to a position under the German front line.
The resulting explosion created a single, vast, smooth sided, flat bottomed crater measuring nearly 100 metres across and 21 metres deep. Now known as the Lochnagar Crater, it is the largest crater ever made by man in anger, and is now a site dedicated to peace, fellowship and reconciliation.
Five years later, after suffering a nervous breakdown, TS Eliot travelled to Margate to rest. Sitting in a seafront shelter, and inspired in part by the horror of the First World War, he wrote his epic poem The Waste Land.
This exhibition is part of an ongoing project by this collective of five artists, who have been given unique access to the Crater site to inspire their work.
Please note: part of this exhibition takes place in an underground space that is only via a staircase and open at weekends only or by appointment; email Dawn Cole dawn.m.cole@btinternet.com.
This exhibitions is part of a bigger programme of events responding to The Waste Land, running in parallel with Journeys with ‘The Waste Land’ at Turner Contemporary
From Wasteland to Wasteland is supported using public funding by Arts Council England.