'War Bowl', Waterloo version, blue, designed and made by Dominic Wilcox, 2005

Shallow bowl formed from partially-melted blue plastic toy soldiers. The figures used to make the bowl represent Napoleonic French Light Infantry and British Foot Artillery soldiers which are modelled with historically-accurate uniforms.

Given by Dominic Wilcox

Dominic Wilcox’s practice spans art, design, craft and technology. Wilcox graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2002 and was given his break by design distributor Thorsten van Elten, who approached him at his graduation show. Wilcox sold his original War Bowl, a grey version made from American GI toy soldiers, to van Elten. The War Bowl has since become one of Wilcox’s signature designs.

The War Bowl is a bowl made from plastic toy soldiers which have been melted together inside a mould. Wilcox developed it according to a brief set by Daniel Charny and Gabriel Klasmer, who were Tutors of Platform 8 on the Design Products MA course led by Ron Arad. Wilcox later described the process:
‘I melted some toy soldiers under my kitchen grill and saw that they fused together but would maintain their shape if not melted too much. My first idea was to create an object using this new soldier material with the same number of soldiers as there were casualties in historical battles as a way of visualising the sheer scale of the losses rather than an abstract number.

I soon realised that famous battles ran into many thousands of soldiers and so I decided to focus on an object that was simple, like a blank canvas and would place the focus onto the soldiers in a symbolic way. This is where the idea for the War Bowl came. The bowl sparks memories of childhood and the fun times I had playing with toy soldiers, but also of the realities of the battlefields of the past.

The first version of the bowl shown at the RCA used generic grey US soldiers that I bought in local shops. It was very fragile as I was using a normal kitchen grill and heat gun.’

Following graduation, Wilcox set up a partnership with course-mate Steve Mosley. Mosley Meets Wilcox lasted until 2005 and sold designs by both partners. Wilcox and Mosley developed a superior way of manufacturing War Bowls, using a custom-made vacuum forming machine made by Mosley using an old kitchen oven element, MDF and sheet metal. The bowls are made by carefully placing toy soldiers inside a wok, then heating them inside the oven section. After about 30 minutes, with regular adjustments and rotations of the wok, the soldiers reach the correct consistency. Wilcox Meets Mosley sold bowls made from standard ‘green army men.’

Following the dissolution of Wilcox Meets Mosley, Wilcox returned to his original idea of representing specific historic battles and conflicts. His first was the Battle of Waterloo, a blue bowl composed of French Light Infantry and British Artillery soldiers. He later produced white English Civil War bowls (2006), a red Zulu War bowl (2007), and in 2011 to commemorate the first War Bowl a red Waterloo and black Civil War bowl.

B.12-2024