Perspectives on War: Expert Talk & Film Screening
A special event to commemorate ANZAC Day. Includes an expert talk by Dr Emily Brayshaw on Clothing and the Materials of Memory in World War I: Remembering Roland Leighton
Perspectives on War is a Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts special event to commemorate ANZAC Day. Hear an expert talk by UTS Faculty of Design, Architecture & Building's Dr Emily Brayshaw on Clothing and the Materials of Memory in World War I: Remembering Roland Leighton, have some afternoon tea and watch classic film Stalag 17 (1953).
Event Outline
12.30pm-1.30pm: Expert Talk – Clothing and the Materials of Memory in World War I: Remembering Roland Leighton with Dr. Emily Brayshaw
1.30pm-2.00pm: Interval – afternoon tea served in the foyer
2.00pm-4.30pm: Classic Film Screening – Stalag 17 (1953) – with brief introduction by Peter Rainey
About Clothing and the Materials of Memory in World War I: Remembering Roland Leighton
This expert talk by Dr Emily Brayshaw will discuss the role of soldiers’ uniforms as second bodies and second graves during World War I, and how women sought comfort from the grief of War through the consumption of new clothes. It will examine this through the story of English soldier and poet, Roland Aubrey Leighton (1895 – 1915). Leighton was engaged to the author Vera Brittain (1893 – 1970) when he shot in the stomach and killed by sniper fire in the trenches of France in World War I. Brittain recalls in her memoir, Testament of Youth (1933), that she was dressing in new clothes for a date with Leighton when his sister telephoned to tell her that he had been killed. Yet Brittain also writes that the bloodied, filthy uniform Leighton was killed in was returned to his family three months after his death, which compounded their grief.
Dress scholars and historians have considered how clothing asserts the continued presence of an absent body, while philosophers have considered how photographs work to erase memories and replace them with counter memories. This lecture will analyse ephemera, including media sources, photographs, and advertisements; and literary sources, including Leighton’s and Brittain’s letters during World War I, and the memoirs of Leighton’s mother and Brittain to give us a unique perspective of WWI through clothing and the materials of memory.
About Dr Emily Brayshaw
Dr Emily Brayshaw is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research interests include fashion, textile and performance costume designs in Europe and America between 1890 and 1930, including dress and costume during World War I, the aesthetics of Kitsch, and the viola. Emily works as a lecturer and tutor in Design History and Thinking and Fashion History and Theory at UTS and as a theatre costume designer in Sydney. She actively researches and publishes in all of these fields.
Registration to attend this event is essential due to limited capacity.
