Director Boyle calls on Britons to mark Armistice Day with beach art

The Pages of the Sea project will see artists etch out large portraits of people killed in the 1914-18 conflict during low tide on Armistice Day on November 11 at various beaches around the country

British filmmaker  Danny Boyle holds a photograph of Private Walter Bleakley, who lived on the same street where Boyle went to school, as he announces plans for his Armistice Day commission for 14-18 NOW, the UK's arts programme for the First World War centenary, on the beach, in Folkestone, England, Friday Oct. 5, 2018. Boyle is urging thousands of people to gather on British beaches and make silhouettes in the sand on Nov. 11 to mark 100 years since the end of World War I. Artists will also create giant portraits of people killed in the war, which will be washed away by the incoming tide. The commemoration caps four years of cultural activities marking the centenary of the 1914-18 conflict, in which 20 million people died. (Gareth Fuller/PAvia AP)
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Oscar-winning film director Danny Boyle has called on Britons to mark the upcoming centenary since the end of World War One by sketching out sand silhouettes on UK beaches in memory of the millions of people who lost their lives in the conflict.

The Pages of the Sea project will see artists etch out large portraits of people killed in the 1914-18 conflict during low tide on Armistice Day on November 11 at various beaches around the country.

Members of the public will also have a chance to create silhouettes of people as a tribute to those who died in what is known as the "Great War".

They will then wait for the tide to come in and wash away the imprints.

"Pages of the Sea will be a unique moment, when we'll say goodbye, together, to the millions of men and women who left their shores during the First World War," British-born Boyle, known for films like Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire, said in a statement.

"Beaches are truly public spaces, where nobody rules other than the tide. They seem the perfect place to gather and say a final goodbye and thank you to those whose lives were taken or affected by the First World War."

Scottish poet Carol Ann Duffy will pen a sonnet for the occasion, which will be read out on the beaches.

An estimated 17 million people were killed in World War One, many of them in the trenches of northern France and Belgium. Around one million of those who perished were from Britain and its then-empire.

Various commemorative events are planned for Nov. 11, the day in 1918 when fighting ended on the Western Front.

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