English Heritage and others are often called upon to record historic aviation sites, along with a range of other comparable (in scale and complexity) former military and industrial places. Recording typically takes place once the site is abandoned and prior to its redevelopment. RAF Coltishall (Norfolk, UK) presented a rare opportunity to record the site while it remained in use, and to continue to record it during the period of drawdown and closure; to watch as things were packed away and as families left. This seemed too good an opportunity to miss, and to take full advantage English Heritage decided to share the task, gathering together a team of artists and archaeologists whose interests were focused on the types of material culture and methodological issues which
If war is conducted largely on the field of logistics, how is the necessary level of involvement in the administrative staff maintained? How do those left behind on the ground remind themselves of how and why they fight? Abandoned office spaces on disbanded squadron facilities may give some clues. This new series of photographs was made at RAF Coltishall in May 2007. Contemporary artists and archaeologists are collaborating in an interdisciplinary investigation of the site during its closure.
Nuclear geographies and geographers contemplate the significance of nuclear technologies and issues for humans, nonhumans, and ecologies in the past, present, and future. This definition highlights how radiation interacts across different scales and mobilities by considering the significance of their relations to humans, nonhumans, ecologies, and materialities. The field brings together diverse geographical approaches to understand nuclear medicine, warfare, energy, and other nuclear technologies. With its focus on social, political, cultural, economic, and ecological consequences, nuclear geographies trace the way that nuclear legacies intersect with contemporary and future challenges. While a process of decolonization of knowledge has begun, more work is needed to highlight how and why the benefits and risks of nuclear technologies are unevenly distributed across lines of race, class, and gender, presenting threats to vulnerable human and nonhuman communities and perpetuating spatial inequalities. This definition provides a toolkit with which to approach key themes – landscapes, zones, and communities; materialities, culture, and the more‐than‐human; politics, activism, and postcolonialism – and with which to consider future directions.
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.
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