HEROIC documentary to preview in London at ARC conference June 24

The documentary HEROIC will preview June 24 at ARC 2026 in London, spotlighting Sabin Howard’s nine-year creation of the National World War I Memorial’s A Soldier’s Journey. The film tracks the making of the 58.5-foot bronze relief and frames the work as a case for rebuilding Western civic culture through art. Why it matters: - HEROIC ties a major art project to a larger debate over how Western institutions rebuild cultural purpose. - The film focuses on A Soldier’s Journey, the National World War I Memorial centerpiece that honors 116,000 Americans who died in the Great War. - The memorial sits 150 yards from the White House, making the work a highly visible marker of public memory in Washington. What happened: - HEROIC will preview in London on June 24 at ARC 2026, The Age of Reconstruction, at Olympia London. - The screening is scheduled as a special preview with a live Q&A from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. BST. - Traci L. Slatton directed and produced the film, HEROIC: Sabin Howard Sculpts the National WWI Memorial. - The Q&A will feature Slatton and sculptor Charles Mostow, who served as assistant director. The details: - The film was shot over 4,000 hours across three continents. - Production moved from Howard’s South Bronx studio to Weta Workshop in New Zealand and a fine arts foundry in Stroud, England. - Howard spent nine years creating the memorial sculpture after winning the National WWI Memorial design competition in 2016. - The work uses 25 tons of bronze and includes 38 figures across 58.5 feet. - Howard combined classical hand-sculpting with photogrammetry to complete the project on deadline. - The composition draws on Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey and the structural imprint of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment. - The documentary also includes the pandemic, federal commission pushback, copyright theft on two continents, and other production setbacks. - A Soldier’s Journey was unveiled Sept. 14, 2024, in Pershing Park, Washington, D.C., with senators, dignitaries and veterans’ organizations attending. - More information and the film listing . Between the lines: - The release frames the sculpture as more than a memorial and casts it as a rebuttal to cultural decline. - The message is aimed at ARC’s audience of thinkers and builders who argue beauty and craftsmanship are central to civilization. - The project’s scale, timeline and technical complexity are being used to argue that large public works still can be made in the West. What’s next: - ARC 2026 runs June 23-25 in London, and HEROIC screens on the conference’s closing day. - The preview could widen interest in both the film and the memorial as symbols of reconstruction and permanence. - Additional public-facing promotion is likely to center on the film’s Q&A and the milestone of the memorial’s completion. The bottom line: - HEROIC arrives as a documentary about sculpture, but it is being positioned as an argument that the West can still produce lasting art at civilizational scale.