A two-screen film (with 16:9 2K single screen version) by artist Paul Rooney that explored the idea of home during times of conflict. A single female voice sings of waiting in her garden for her 'dark-eyed sailor' to return from war, ...See moreA two-screen film (with 16:9 2K single screen version) by artist Paul Rooney that explored the idea of home during times of conflict. A single female voice sings of waiting in her garden for her 'dark-eyed sailor' to return from war, bearing the other half of their token, a gimmel ring. Three veterans pass on the road as she waits, and she asks them: "When you were fighting in distant lands, did you think of the home you left?" In reply the veterans relate their recollections. The garden images in the accompanying film represent 'home', but also stand for a more general possibility of redemption, of the potential of the past to return at any time, disguised and changed, to renew the present: "Each moment of time is a garden gate," the song goes, "Through it my love may walk." The artist worked with Plymouth veterans, veteran families, creatives and West Country folk singer Hannah Martin. Rooney drew upon the veterans' and family members' recollections of connecting with home during the Falklands War, Gulf War and War in Afghanistan, and combined these stories with film footage and a folk ballad performed by Martin. The ballad was inspired by a Victorian folk song collector's manuscript held in The Box's archives.
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