The New European newspaper: “It’s this combination of grief both personal and national, contemporary and historical that lends substance to this moving, unforgettable exhibition.” Following the critical and commercial success of the Greenwich exhibition, which ran throughout July, the exhibition moved to Liverpool in November 2016, opening on the 18th of that month to commemorate the end of the Battle of the Somme. Moving the entire installation and reassembling it inside the ground floor of the Martin Luther King Jnr Building (part of the National Museums of Liverpool) on the city’s prestigious Albert Dock, the exhibition was expanded to fifteen paintings and featured five new works of art, including a painting entitled ‘The First & the Last’ which was inspired by the Liverpool Pals’ Brigade; the first of the so called “pals’ brigades” to be established and the last to be disbanded. The augmented reality work of art incorporated a moving rendition of a letter written home to his
parents by 27 year old Arthur Seanor, who died within the first twenty minutes of the Battle of the Somme. The Danger Tree has already touched the hearts and minds of thousands of people; young and old, rich and poor, and this can be substantiated by reading the exhibition’s visitors’ books that contain over 1000 messages of appreciation and remembrance. “The poetry of war is immune to propaganda. It is beautifully, brutally honest. Everything is true and raw and terrifying and soul-breaking. It moves us deeply. For artists working from the heart, with honesty and freedom, it is an incalculable invitation. The Danger Tree is not a normal exhibition. We want it to crash into people and open them up. It isn’t about defending a country, it’s about defending the human heart. Soldier, poet, painter -- we are all humanity.” Scarlett Raven & Marc Marot
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