A letter to an unknown soldier

“A letter to an unknown soldier” is a new kind of war memorial made only of words and by thousands of people. In the occasion of the centenary of war declaration all the people of the country are invited to write a letter to the unknown soldier who stands on the memorial on Platform One in Paddington Station.
The statue is made of bronze, was built by Charles Sargeant Jagger and represents serving trench infantryman, who is reading a letter, but are not presented clues of it. Someone thinks that it is smiling while others are opposed.
The platform one at Paddington is one of the busiest railway station platforms in the British Isles.
The letters could be sent in two ways: through an online website or through a letter.
The website will be the focus of A LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER. Initially, from March 2014, the website will be a focus for publicising and explaining the project. Alongside examples of letters already received from well-known authors, people interested in contributing to the work will be able to find plenty to inspire and provoke them to sit down at a computer or pick up their pens. The website will include photos and film of the statue; historical material about letter-writing in war, and how writing in and about war has always been contested; examples of letters from the First World War from the collections of the Imperial War Museum. It will foreground the idea of being part of something big, involving the whole country. Then, on 28 June 2014, one hundred years from the day Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Vienna, A LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER will open up for participation from everyone in the country. After opening the letter, the site remained open until August and during this period there have been updates, reports and letters that constantly came.
This project was intended for all and through the media there has been spreading in schools, libraries, and in many places.
The purposes of the project were: to be open to everybody, to get letters from people who would never think of themselves as writers and to receive at least a thousand letters on the website a day for each of the thirty-five days that the site is open.
Once the creation of the memorial is complete the archive of writing that makes up A LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN SOLDIER will remain available online throughout the full five years of the 14-18 NOW programme, accessible for people to read right up until Armistice Day 2018.
14–18 NOW is commissioning leading artists to create new work as part of the UK’s First World War centenary commemorations. Musicians, writers, painters, photographers, theatre directors, film-makers, digital designers, composers, poets, choreographers and more will be invited to look afresh at the First World War and what its many stories reveal about the world we live in today. A LETTER TO UNKNOWN SOLDIER is one of first tranche of commissions.
The creators of the Letter to the Unknown Soldier were: Neil Bartlett and Kate Pullinger.
Neil Bartlett is a novelist and theatre-maker. He was awarded in recognition of his pioneering efforts and continued to gay culture and civil rights, and was awarded an OBE in 2000 for his work as artistic director of the Lyric Hammersmith.
Kate Pullinger is a novelist and digital writer. She has been at the forefront of literary digital innovation and participatory media for more than a decade; her on-going web projects, Inanimate Alice and Flight Paths; a Networked Novel, have gathered readers from around the world.
Neil and Kate have known each other since 1989, but this is the first time that they have worked together.