This two-screen film and sound piece by artist Paul Rooney explores the idea of home during times of conflict. The film combines veterans’ recollections of connecting with home during periods of service overseas. Paul has combined film footage with a melodic ballad sung by folk singer Hannah Martin, inspired by a page found in a Victorian folk song collector’s manuscript in The Box's archives. The Songs of the West manuscript by Sabine Baring-Gould, turned to The Broken Token song page, was displayed alongside a selection of archival photographs. 

So how did we get here? When first considering our application for the IWM 14-18 NOW Legacy Fund Commissions our minds immediately turned to the recent 40th anniversary of the Falklands Conflict. We had recently updated one of our permanent displays at The Box to reflect that time. The new display includes photographs of thousands of people lining Plymouth’s foreshore waving flags to welcome the fleet back home. We were aware that these images only told a small part of the story and didn’t truly reflect the experiences of those who had been involved in the conflict or their family and friends left back at home. The idea to dig deeper and explore the reality behind these images became our starting point for the project. 

We knew from the outset that we wanted to collaborate with veterans and their families to co-commission an artist that would interpret and reflect their very personal experiences. To do this we issued an open invitation to veterans through a variety of targeted groups and associations in the city. Plymouth has over 18,000 veterans amongst its 267,000 population so we were confident that at least some of them would want to work with us!  Our initial call-out attracted nine veterans to the first meeting, which eventually became a core team of five. We worked closely with the group for around six months, to explore our collections, our programme and approaches to commissioning contemporary artwork. 

The age of members within the group ranged from early 20’s through to 80’s and despite the broad range of experiences of conflict, shared themes started to emerge. Discussions around connections and communication with home became the inspiration for the artist brief that we wrote together. 

The commission was advertised as an open-call and we were delighted with the response and quality of applications. The next stage involved working with the veterans to review and shortlist four artists to invite for interview. Alongside the veterans and The Box the selection panel also included Iris Veysey, Senior Curator at the Imperial War Museum. All four artists interviewed had excellent proposals and very different approaches and after much debate the group was very excited to select Paul Rooney, an internationally recognised artist based in Liverpool.

We had made it clear to the veteran group from the start that following the artist selection it was their choice whether or not they wanted to continue to engage with the project and creation of the work. We all felt that one of the main strengths of Paul’s work is his ability to connect with people and engage the communities where his works have been made. Although based far from Plymouth he was keen to work with local fabricators and producers. It was clear that Paul’s proposal connected with the group and we were thrilled that they all wanted to continue with the process. 

When it came to creating the work Paul explains the next steps; Paul states ‘The The opportunity the IWM 14-18 NOW Legacy Fund provided me an opportunity to create an ambitious piece working with themes related to conflict, and with services veterans, was exciting from the start. Any nervousness I may have had at working with a group of people and a subject matter that I was not familiar with was banished after the interview experience, during which it was clear that Tony, Carol, Yorkie, Chris and Ade (the veteran group) were really approachable and happy to facilitate my proposal and ideas and to continue to be involved in the making of the work. Tony and Jodie at the Box were also invaluable in filling me in on the background of working with the veterans up to that point and assuring me of the openness of the veterans to the art making process (I had proposed to interview the veterans as part of the work) and of the availability of The Box facilities and collections for potential use in the piece I eventually made.’

‘I knew I wanted to investigate The Box archive for folk revival material and after interviewing the veterans during the script writing process I decided to base the work largely in The Box itself: specifically the archive, painting collection (thanks to Curator Terah Walkup), and interview room. This involved filming, in Super 8, in these locations, as well as around Plymouth, with local film maker Dan Paolantonio. I worked with Devon based singer Hannah Martin on the sound recording around the same time as the filming. All of this was an incredibly smooth process up to this point. The only hitch came when I had to send the Super 8 film away to be processed in Germany, which took longer than I would have liked! This cut into my editing time a little, but this did not prove too much of a problem. There was even time to re-edit the footage slightly to remove copyrighted material, and this allowed me to use some superb footage connected with The Falklands era from The Box media archive (thanks to Archivist Stacey Anderson). With Tony and Jodie’s help, local blacksmith Paul Ager was commissioned to make the double-sided projection screens for the hall space which were beautifully constructed and looked fantastic in the final install.’

Broken Token was exhibited at The Box from 19 Oct 202 – 12 Jan 2025 and was seen by an estimated 35,000 visitors.  The feedback from those visitors was overwhelmingly positive, with many talking about how moving the piece was and how it made them think about conflict in a different way.

For us at The Box, the whole process has been a rewarding one, enabling us to connect with a community that is important to the city and to reflect on how communities could and should be involved in future projects and commissions.

We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone involved and in particular, the veteran group of Tony, Carol, Paul, Chris and Ade for their generosity, openness and trust in the process.  The last word must go to one of those veterans, Paul, who in talking about the process states ‘initially I thought, is it going to be just a boring old oil painting? Or is it going to be so much more? And obviously the end result, having just seen it all the way through for the first time today, it did actually give me a quite a wave of emotion.’