Following David Cameron’s decision to extend the time that the poppy memorial would be on display at the Tower of London, there have been calls to make the installation a permanent feature of the capital.
But Manchester School of Art lecturer Jane McFadyen says that the removal of the piece, titled Blood Swept Sands and Seas of Red, is as important as its presence.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Jane said: “Part of the process of this idea is that it’s a transient piece, it’s a piece of work that would develop over time and have the impact that it is having, but then that actually it would then disappear, and at the point it does disappear that’s quite shocking.
“This beautiful thing that people have generated and responded to in the way they have will vanish and some people won’t have the chance to see it, they will miss out. And that’s because actually that’s what happened to all the people those poppies represent.”
Jane continued: “The work of art has been designed to do something and the removal of it is particularly crucial.”
She added that the planned day of removal, Armistice Day, had also been crucial to the artist’s vision.
Cameron followed up his announcement of the extension to the public view with the news that some of the poppies would be taken on tour around Britain before finding a permanent home in the Imperial War Museums of Manchester and London in 1918.
The installation, which features 888.246 ceramic poppies, one for each British military fatality during WW1, is the work of artist Paul Cummins, from Derbyshire.
