Manchester

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'Remembered' war graves memorial exhibition

Imperial War Museum North hosts a powerful new photographic exhibition about World War I and II

It’s certainly not the cheeriest of subject matters, but a powerful new photographic exhibition that focuses on war graves is worth dropping in to see. Consisting of forty haunting photographs (taken by award-winning snapper, Brian Harris), ‘Remembered’ tells the story of the 23,000 war memorials lovingly tended by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, now in its 90th year. The small selection of black-and-white and full colour images on display at Imperial War Museum North capture the terrible scale and legacy of the First and Second World Wars (the memorials themselves are dedicated to 1,700,000 fallen servicemen and -women). And yet, despite the impersonal and sometimes anonymous rows of graves, Harris’ photographs communicate an intimacy that drives home the human loss behind the cemeteries and memorials. Which brings us to the purpose of this exhibition: the under-documented importance of the War Graves Commission to those families whose loved ones never made it home.

Remembered: The History of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Imperial War Museum North, The Quays, Trafford Wharf, M17 1TZ (836 4000/http://north.iwm.org.uk). November 10-March 9 2008; 10am-5pm daily. Free.

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