Green Room (v)
Date: 5th January 2009A looped single channel video, documenting the anticipation and preparation for treatment of mass casualties within conflict.
After two years of negotiations between the Wellcome Trust, Imperial War Museum and Ministry of Defence, Cotterrell was invited to observe the Joint Forces Medical Group at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. He underwent basic training, was taught the rudiments of battlefield first aid and was issued with body armour. In November 2007, he flew in an RAF C17 from Brize Norton to Kandahar, the sole passenger in a plane loaded with half a million rounds of palletised munitions and medical supplies to join Operation Herrick 7.
A companion piece to Serial Loop, Green Room is an alternative vision of the same event: the arrival of casualties at Camp Bastion for treatment after a Major Incident. Medics prepare for the entrance of their assigned patients. Doctors, nurses, technicians and observers shuffle, chat and arrange the scene, their bodies and faces concentrated on the tasks to come over the next four hours. Like actors preparing to enter the stage, the players here come forward and withdraw from the camera’s gaze as they consider the work ahead of them.
Materials:30 Minutes, High Definition Video projection.
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Gallery, Installation, Series, Site Neutral, VideoNews
TheArtFund RUSI: Remembrance in a Modern Society - 10.03.10, Bearing witness: the role of war artists in the 21st century - 26.10.09, AMH 2010 : Humanities at the Cutting Edge - 05.07.10, David Cotterrell : Kino EyeBibliography
Art in the Danger Zone, War and Medicine, Krieg und Medizin, Bloody Reality, Uncontainable: Leonardo Electronic Alamanac, War and Art : A Visual History of Modern Conflict, A Heavy Reckoning: War, Medicine and Survival in Afghanistan and BeyondExhibitions
Aesthetic Distance, Afghanistan, Uncontainable : Broken Stillness, Saving Lives: Frontline Medicine in a Century of ConflictAwards
War & Medicine : War Artist CommissionTalks
Culture in a Time of Conflict (a), Culture and Consequence, David Cotterrell in Conversation, Army medics on the front-line (v), David Cotterrell on Afghanistan (v), Bearing witness: the role of war artists in the 21st century, David Cotterrell War and Medicine, BBC Radio 4 Today : Injury and Conflict (a), David Cotterrell Film Screening, BBC Radio 4 : The Two Minute Silence (a), RUSI : Subjective Views (a), TED : How I Almost Lost My Faith in Photography (v)Downloads
War and Medicine : Artists Diary, RSA Lecture : Culture in a Time of Conflict, TimeOut : Military Responses, RSA Journal : Art and Conflict, War and Medicine : Interview Transcript, Guardian G2 : Bloody Reality, David Cotterrell : Kino EyeReviews
ameliasmagazine.com : Aesthetic distance, artsandecologyblog : David Cotterrell - Truth in the mundane, artsandecologyblog : Afghanistan - art and war, Yorkshire Post : The Silence That Still ResonatesSponsors
