Artist Paul Cummins and designer Tom Piper open Poppies: Weeping Window at the Silk Mill, Derby. Photo by Richard Stonehouse/Getty Images for 14-18 NOW
This morning, artist Paul Cummins and designer Tom Piper unveiled Poppies: Weeping Window at the Silk Mill in Derby. The sculpture officially opens to the public tomorrow, Friday 9 June, remaining until Sunday 23 July. This is the second location of Weeping Window on the 2017 Poppies Tour.
The Silk Mill was divided into two businesses during the First World War, both integral to the British war effort; one ground corn and the other made medical supplies. Derby as a whole played a vital part in wartime production, including the Rolls-Royce factory, which developed the Eagle Engine for allied aircraft at the request of the government. Today, the Silk Mill: Museum of Making explores the industrial and social history of Derby’s companies and communities.
Many of the poppies that featured in ‘Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red,’ the original installation at the Tower of London in 2014, were made in Derby.
