Siné MacPherson
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TWENTY-FIVE EYES

Bruce James review TWENTY-FIVE EYES / EIGHTY-FOUR YEARS

Trevor Tasker "The Halifax Explosion"

TWENTY-FIVE EYES / EIGHTY-FOUR YEARS

2001
yuill|crowley
Sydney NSW



TWENTY-FIVE EYES
2001
25 units, each 41 x 41 cm
oil on canvas


The Halifax Explosion

Thursday, December 6, 1917, dawned bright and clear in Halifax. World War I raged in Europe, and the port city was busy with the movement of war ships carrying troops, relief supplies and munitions. In The Narrows, the Mont Blanc, a French munitions carrier, collided with the Belgian relief ship, the Imo, and the Mont Blanc began to burn. There were about 20 minutes between the collision and the explosion. It was enough time for spectators, including many children, to run to the waterfront or gather at windows to watch the burning ship.

At 9:05am the Mont Blanc detonated and disintegrated in a blinding white flash, the largest man made explosion prior to the nuclear age and the atomic bomb. All 300 tons of her were shattered into little pieces that were blasted far and wide destroying 325 acres of Halifax.

Over 1,900 people were killed immediately; within a year the figure had climbed to well over 2,000; 9,000 more were injured, many permanently; An exceptionally large number of people were injured by flying glass — 1,000 unfortunate survivors sustained eye damage.

The glass eyes were purchased from a Halifax curio shop in 1978. They are children’s glass eyes. The painted eyes were taken from a collection of my children’s drawings from about 1982 to 1988.