ENTRY DESCRIPTION
Inspired by the words of David Lloyd George’s defeated promise in 1918 to provide the country with the task of making “Britain a fit country for heroes to live in”, my explores how the returning soldiers of World War One were faced with the difficulty of adapting back to civilian and domesticated life after 4 years of defence overseas. For the soldiers returning to the home front, they were greeted with a country transformed and manipulated by the Great War, despite the initial cheer and warmth from their families, friends and fellow citizens, some soldiers experienced “a trade of depression” (Reginald Johnson), emotional instability and intimacy with a new civilised life. John McCauley quotes; “They sapped my courage, shattered my nerves and threw me back into a ‘civilised’ world broken in spirit and nerve. They might as well have taken my body too”.
My series explores the emotional state of the returning soldiers, and how it contradicts the promise of a fit country that was supposed to support them. With endured trauma, manipulated personalities and a disrupted perspective of the world and civilisation, the soldiers greatly affected home life. I want to show their difficulty with intimacy between themselves, their family and society, through amplifying their isolation.

The photomontage depicts the soldiers back on their home ground. Back on our beach. However, with the emotional state and feelings of abandonment, home is still isolation.

AUTHOR
Lauren Burfield is a British contemporary photographer from Dubai, concentrating her practice surrounding documentary and observational studies. Lauren is a 2020 graduating student from the Arts University Bournemouth and a bartender with aspirations to combine her photographic and digital imagery skills with her eagerness to learn more about distillery, spirits, cocktails and marketing the industry in order to enter a representative and ambassadorial position in the future. The contemporary practice exhibited through the variety of her work include digital manipulation and photomontage / observational narratives documenting middle eastern culture / and photojournalism under the current climate. With moving to Bournemouth, the interest of photographing culture and industry was followed through to the representation of the hospitality industry in industrial kitchens and the intimate relationship in the solidarity of the community.

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