Arthur Frederick Soole
Infantry Uniform, digital embroidery, digital fabric print, felt. 2005-2007
Infantryman Arthur Frederick Soole was injured at the Battle of Vimy Ridge as were so many of his Canadian counterparts. Working from back to front, the uniform describing events concerning Soole begins with the embroidery on the back of the uniform depicts the geographical area of the Battle of Vimy Ridge in April 1917, which claimed the lives of many Canadian servicemen. The town of Arras is also depicted as a black digitally embroidered block whilst connecting road and rail links are machine embroidered freehand. The cuff of the left sleeve details small padded digital embroideries of pre-operative sketched dealing with the repair of the jaw-bone whilst the right sleeve has articulated embroideries of the proposed skin graft from chest to chin with additional pocket embroideries of the surgical notes.
A ‘horseshoe’ cut in the uniform represents the skin graft from chest to chin to repair the soft tissue of the skin. The long edges of the horseshoe are stitched together to form the connecting tubed pedicles whilst the centre section of the graft is stitched in place on the chin.
Soole recovered from his surgery and returned to Canada. Although he was earmarked for further surgery, he never returned to the UK.
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