Artwork inspired by invalid beaker contrasts brutality with care

An artwork inspired by an item which was used both to help sustain wounded soldiers and force-feed suffragettes has gone on display.

I Say Nothing is made up of two large-scale sculptures which depict an invalid beaker being used on hunger strikers and injured armed forces personnel, around 1914.

It goes on display at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow on Friday, having been co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW, the UK’s arts programme for the centenary of the First World War.

In creating the piece, artist Christine Borland described what she hoped visitors to the art gallery would take from her work.

She said: “The complexity of both objects in relation to wars – the histories of war, the legacy of war – the complexity of these two things.

“The different stories that can be told and interpreted can change drastically.

“To consider objects which may have no value as such intrinsically, yet they have such a lot of power, depending on whose hands that power falls into.”

Throughout a year-long research residency, Ms Borland had full access to Glasgow’s collection from the war.

The object which captured her imagination was a white ceramic invalid feeder cup, so she travelled to Belgium, where they still undertake work to make safe wartime munitions, to get hold of one.

It was blown to pieces in a controlled explosion for the installation, to show how things can be transformed from their original use to be given a new lease of life – in this case as a contemporary artwork responding to the dualities of war.

Christine Borland with art
Christine Borland with art

Ms Borland’s work attempts to contrast institutional care and brutality by focusing on the historical use of the cup.

Tamsin Dillon, curator of 14-18 NOW, said: “When we saw the proposals that came from Glasgow Museums to work with Christine Borland and to see how she was going to research into the collection, we felt it was the best proposal amongst those that we were looking at and the one we had to commit to.”

Jo Meacock, curator of British art at Glasgow Museums, said: “It’s been amazing to see all the conversations that we had over that year – and the research that Christine’s carried out – how it’s all come to together in this tremendous piece, here at Kelvingrove.

“Also, how it responded to the architecture of the building and the history of the building.

“There’s so many ideas intertwining in this artwork, it’s really very complex.”

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