Explore & Draw – On a Wing and a Prayer – Resistance

Members of Medway-based art group Explore & Draw came together at the Royal Engineers Museum with the purpose of creating this exhibition inspired by what they discovered. Each artist has each responded in their own unique way, some drawing directly from personal connection to the Royal Engineers, or the inspiring stories of others contained within these walls.

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On a Wing and a Prayer

Sian Ford

£120

Here in the Museum is a section about the development of flight. Royal Engineers were exploring this as early as 1860.  It was the courage of these early pioneers which ultimately led to the formation of the Royal Air Force.

I was very moved by the stories of the individuals involved.  They took to the air in fragile constructions at great risk to themselves.   Mrs Leila Marie Cody in 1902 became the first woman to fly in Britain.  She made her ascent in the ‘Man-lifting War Kite’ designed by her American husband Sam Cody, himself the first man to fly a plane in Britain.  Lieutenant RA Cammell, the first to be killed on active service aged 25. Captain AD Carden, who despite having only one arm gained his pilot’s licence in 1912. There are many more who’s names are lost to time.

I chose to honour them by depicting some of the craft they flew. The central plane is deliberately skeletal and drawn from the replica Bleriot Mark XXI here in the Museum. In my piece it also represents a cross in their memory.

Berlin Wall

Sian Ford

NFS

The Berlin Wall exhibit here at the Museum is a very powerful reminder of the Communist enforced division of the people of Germany for 28 years. Its primary objective being to stem mass defections from East to West. The wall twisted through Berlin like a motionless concrete snake, dividing streets, backyards, families and communities. It destroyed people’s lives and whichever side you went to bed on the night of 13 August 1961 was the side on which you remained. 

The people in West Berlin took great risks with their defiance against the enforced repression and separation of the people. Graffiti became a mechanism of protesting and symbolising peace.

The Museum’s section of wall is believed to be one of the largest outside Germany and was brought here by Royal Engineers 38 Squadron who helped demolish the wall in 1989.

Explore & Draw at the Royal Engineers Museum runs from 4th April to 25th June