Abstract

Since at least the 1990s, archaeologists and artists have been documenting military installations following the withdrawal of service personnel. They have usually embarked on these recording opportunities separately, experiencing these sites as derelict, lifeless places, with stripped buildings devoid of much of their meaning after their occupants have left. Archaeologists have typically created maps and made photographs. Artists have also taken photographs, but in addition made films and created soundworks. Wherever the medium and the motivation, the assumption is usually made that only those closely familiar with the rhythms and rituals of service life can begin to understand the emptiness of what remains. And being secretive military installations, creating a record during their occupation is never an option. Uniquely, in the months leading to the closure of RAF Coltishall (Norfolk) in 2006, the RAF granted the authors unprecedented access to record the base's drawdown and closure. The project brought artists and archaeologists together to see what could be achieved in unison, while still maintaining some degree of research independence. In undertaking this survey, three related themes emerged: the role of art as heritage practice, new thinking on what constitutes landscape, and the notion of a 'technological sublime'. Following an earlier publication, we now reflect again on those themes. In doing so, we offer this collaboration between art and archaeology (traditionally considered two distinct ways of seeing and recording) as an innovative methodology for documentation, not least after the closure and abandonment of such military and industrial landscapes, where occupational communities had once lived. In this article, the words represent our ideas; the images and films are an example of the result.

Highlights

  • In 1966, and ahead of its time, an Institute of Contemporary Archaeology was created by the Boyle family of collaborative artists based in London, to give context to their work 'Dig', performed first at Shepherd's Bush and later Watford

  • Key references during the project's formative stages and execution included: Buchli and Lucas 2001, GravesBrown 2000 and McAtackney et al 2007 for contemporary archaeology; and Renfrew 2004 and Schofield 2006 for contemporary art and archaeology. Together these projects and discussions emphasised the gradual erosion of disciplinary boundaries and witnessed the emerging connections in particular between art and archaeology in the context of both heritage practice and thinking around ideas of place, community and landscape

  • The Coltishall project was commissioned by English Heritage's ( Historic England's) Characterisation Team, and led by John Schofield

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Summary

Introduction

Key references during the project's formative stages and execution included: Buchli and Lucas 2001, GravesBrown 2000 and McAtackney et al 2007 for contemporary archaeology; and Renfrew 2004 and Schofield 2006 for contemporary art and archaeology. Together these projects and discussions emphasised the gradual erosion of disciplinary boundaries and witnessed the emerging connections in particular between art and archaeology in the context of both heritage practice and thinking around ideas of place, community and landscape. With the RAF providing virtually unlimited access to the historic and iconic station at RAF Coltishall, a station with a strong sense of place and community, and where the trauma of closure was likely to be keenly felt among its personnel and alumna, this was an ideal opportunity for experimenting with innovative methods of recording process while documenting a place in time

Coltishall in its Cultural and Social Landscape
Aims and Objectives
Documenting Drawdown: thinking through a method
Sign into abstraction
Reverberation
Mirroring through geography
The Technological Sublime
A New Beginning
Conclusion
Full Text
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