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Mapping a First World War archive through a contemporary lens

ABSTRACT This article examines my current research, which is comprised of the making of a gallery installation film, Palimpsest. This film uses contemporary images of the everyday to contemplate events of the First World War as represented in a collection of unique, first-hand, unpublished letters sent home to London by mapmaker Rifleman Barney Griew. Palimpsest has been commissioned by Changing the Landscape, a multimedia arts project developed by Sarah Kogan and supported from public finding by the National Lottery through Arts Council of England and was the first contemporary art exhibition at The National Archive, UK. My writing explores the process and methods of representing the past through contemporary spaces, and their configuration into a continuous biographical narrative denoting the journey taken by Griew. In illustrating the development of the film, I scrutinize the work of the New Topographic Photographers of the 1970s focusing on their representation of landscape, the images of Thomas Ruff and the Russian Formalists in regard to multi-image storytelling. These examples are examined to draw comparisons and evaluate the fostering of critical understanding. I conclude by discussing the importance of contemporary digital technology in shaping our perception of the past.