Unspeakable, the artist as witness to the Holocaust
Imperial War Museum

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Darren Almond

'History is all about passing on information to the generation following you, and so in order to do that I felt that I needed to have some sculptural engagement with the place that would enable me to sit down and speak about these facts.'

Darren Almond
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Darren Almond, Border. Two 'road signs' which designate entering and leaving Oswiecim (Auschwitz). Both have a white background with a black border and black text reading 'Oswiecim'. The exit sign has a red line diagonally across it. The signs are supported on stands with two legs, with a metal frame encircling the sign.
Border, 1999
paint on aluminum, Imperial War Museum

Darren Almond has been making work with reference to Auschwitz since 1997. The sculpture piece Border is a replica of the entry and exit signs to the town of Oswiecim (Auschwitz). In 1999, Almond also removed and exhibited bus shelters from Oswiecim at Galerie Max Hetler, Berlin.

Darren Almond's diverse work, incorporating film, installation, sculpture and photography, deals with evocative meditations on time and duration as well as the themes of personal and historical memory.

'I'm the first generation removed from any experience of the Second World War. To me, it's a completely abstract notion. I'm just left with what the generation before me has manufactured – where do I come in? I'm outside, waiting at a bus stop. I can choose to go in and get involved with the histories and look at the relics and try to come to terms with that moment in history, or I can get on the bus and carry on.

History is all about passing on information to the generation following you, and so in order to do that I felt that I needed to have some sculptural engagement with the place that would enable me to sit down and speak about these facts.'

Darren Almond

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