It is an impressive exhibition: 258 life size metallic silhouettes are placed on the ramparts and in the parade ground at Fort Nelson, near Portsmouth. They represent the 255 members of the Task Force and 3 female islanders who lost their lives in the Falklands conflict, in 1982. This art work was created in 2022, to mark the fortieth anniversary of the war, and continues to tour the country this year.
Showing this exhibition in the Portsmouth area seems particularly appropriate as it was in this city that dock yard workers prepared the ships, ready to take the force the 8000 miles to the Falklands and the same city was home to the emotional reunion of returning personnel.
Alongside this art installation is a – somewhat testing – quiz for children, which involves finding and making deductions from the letters of various members of the force to their families.
All this serves to remind the many visitors of the horror and loss of life of warfare, even that which seems so necessary to preserve basic human freedoms and, above all, the need for peace, as shown in this prayer:
O God of many names,
Lover of all nations
We pray for peace
in our hearts
in our homes
in our nations
in our world.
The peace of your will
The peace of our need. Amen