War Belt for FLorence Nightingale and Mary Seacole. Part 1.

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Artist: Joanna Rogers

Title: War Belt for FLorence Nightingale and Mary Seacole. Part 1.

Attribution: War Belt for Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole. Part 1. 2024. Joanna Rogers

Year: 2024

Materials: Mercerized cotton thread dyed with madder, cochineal, cutch, sappanwood, St Johns Wort on painted canvas with braid

Dimensions: 40" x 20"

Image Statement: This piece examines the legacies of Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole who were both nurses at the Crimean War. Nightingale was a statitician and used rose charts to illustrate mortality rates at the front as well as in army barracks in the UK thus paving the way for reforms in hygeine. Seacole was an entrepreneur and healer who used her own funds to travel to the Crimea to establish the British Hotel where she not only fed soldiers, but also treated the wounded. This piece contains the first half of the poem The Charge of the Light Brigade by Tennyson in morse code. Each thread is a letter in the poem. The dots and dashes are represented by small and large knots.