Historical information

This quilt was made as part of a public program for Glen Eira City Council's exhibition The Wounded Soldier. The quilt was designed as a response to a loan object for the exhibition, a Red Cross comfort quilt made by school children at Longwary Primary School for the patients at Caulfield Military Hospital after the First World War.

Students from across Glen Eira were invited to workshops in 2016, and asked to bring a found natural object. Cameron Auty and Elle Credlin then explained the historic making of comforts for wounded soldiers by children during the war, and asked them to reflect upon what it would have been like to be confronted with war and its outcomes as a child. Artist Deborah O'Toole then guided the children in stitching message into their own cotton squares, and in tying the found objects into the cotton. Deborah then took the squares away and dyed them using a method that involved tying the squares into patterns and dyeing them to create the finished look.

The quilt was displayed alongside the Longwarry Quilt during the exhibition before being collected into the collection.

Significance

This object is significant as a modern, artistic response to Caulfield's experience as the centre of repatriation medicine in Victoria after the First World War. It is a locally significant object made by Glen Eira school children, and reflects the area's memorialisation of the war at its centenary.

Physical description

Square quilt made of tan coloured cotton. The quilt comprises many small squares, each of which has an image or name signed on it. The images are made of natural objects such as leaves. The names are hand stitched.