Art, Sensemaking and Dialogue Projects by John Oliver
Performance and video tribute
Ideally watch with headpones, fullscreen and with no distractions...
One of my early art projects, working with recycled wood, developed into a flag creation, being facinated about our notions of boudaries and identity. At the begining, I was going with a spontaneous process of experimenting with the materials and paints, and then I found myself inspired to take this large flag made of wood to the ocean beach - another symbolic threshold of boundaries.
Walking back from the beach I was suddenly overcome with a vision of creating a video tribute to my maternal grandfather who died in the 2nd World War, while serving in the British Navy - below are some of the video snapshots, with the full video below.
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In addition a BBC documentary of his ship, the HMS Gloucester is linked below, documenting the tragic errors of command that lead to the loss of the HMS Gloucester - one of the most significant losses of the Navy's WWII campaign. Of her crew of 810 men, only 83 survived.
A tribute written by a fellow officer of John Brett's (we believe by George Marriner).
"A braver man I never knew than John Brett. I can assure you that if he is not to return he would have gone down fighting the enemy to the last second. We had no one on board who showed a better example than Uncle John (as I used to call him) when up against it.
He was loved by his men and admired by us.
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He had already done the work of a thousand men in destroying the enemy so as to make the world a better place for his loved ones."
Sources:
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"HMS Gloucester - The Untold Story" by Ken Otter Pen and Sword Maritime; Reprint edition (August 8, 2017)
