Blood-red ceramic poppies 'flow across' Tower of London for VE Day
:: London, England
:: May 6, 2025
:: Tom Piper, Designer
"For me, the poppies have always acted like a liquid. It's like they're good. They become a metaphor for the spilled blood of all those who died in the war. And so what I've done is create a series of episodes that happen around the tower. So behind me here, you've got basically a like we're calling it a wound or an explosion. It's almost like a bomb has hit the ground and the kind of poppies are kind of blown out from it. And from that, then they kind of flow down across the landscape, join up with another installation that comes up the White Tower and then flow down into Traitor's Gate. So the whole thing is like a moving, flowing installation, almost like blood flowing across the tower."
Poppies, the symbol of remembrance in Britain, were installed to form a bright red cascade flowing from one corner of the 950-year-old White Tower onto the grass below.
The government has planned a series of events in the run-up to the anniversary of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender, which took effect on May 8, 1945.
The new commemorative display of 30,000 ceramic poppies follows a previous installation in 2014 which remembered lives lost during World War One. Named "Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red", it was visited by the late Queen Elizabeth.
The Tower of London, located on the north bank of the River Thames, is a Norman fortress which, like many parts of London, was bombed during World War Two.
The poppies, which were made by artist Paul Cummins, will be on display until November 11.
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