Gateway II (triptych) (Left panel) (2009)

David Cotterell is an installation artist who works across various mediums and technologies, exploring social and political extremities. His work focuses on the human condition and the pressures it can be forced to undergo. After two years of negotiations between the Wellcome Trust, Imperial War Museum and Ministry of Defence, David Cotterrell was invited to observe the Joint Forces Medical Group at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. He underwent basic training, was taught the rudiments of battlefield first aid and was issued with body armour.

In November 2007, he flew in an RAF C17 from Brize Norton to Kandahar, the sole passenger in a plane loaded with half a million rounds of palletised munitions and medical supplies to join Operation Herrick 7. His triptych Gateway II presents one night when wounded soldiers were transferred onto the plane that took them home to the UK. The huge scale of the planes contrasts with the vulnerability of their human cargo, who were sedated and probably unaware of their journey. There is an unnerving air within the densely padded windowless aeroplane interior that contrasts with the calamities outside. The work was made during a period of time when casualty rates for British troops were escalating.

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