RAF Coltishall - exploring new ways to record the recent past
Documenting drawdown and closure of an historic airfield
Construction of RAF Coltishall (Norfolk) began in early 1939, a few months before the outbreak of the Second World War. For over 65 years the airfield was home to a community of up to 3000 air force personnel and their dependents. Since the early 1990s, English Heritage has documented many redundant defence sites. After the departure of their personnel we have often experienced these as derelict, lifeless places, with stripped buildings devoid of meaning. Uniquely, in the months leading to the closure of RAF Coltishall in November 2006, the RAF granted English Heritage unprecedented access to record the base’s drawdown and closure.
Another new departure for this project was our close collaboration with three sound and video artists, Angus Boulton, Gair Dunlop and Louise K Wilson. Their work will bring new perceptions to complement the stills photography, capturing for example the essential character of the place, the trauma of closure, and the rituals and ceremonies that accompanied it. Together these records constitute a characterisation of the base at this time, and a documentation of the processes of change and their effect on service personnel, the local community and landscape.
For more information about this project, please contact Wayne Cocroft wayne.cocroft@english-heritage.org.uk or Steve Cole steve.cole@english-heritage.org.uk at English Heritage's Cambridge office (01223) 582700
A photographic survey documenting the drawdown and closure of RAF Coltishall is available to download here in two parts (2MB & 2.3MB - click on the images). A paper copy of the report can be ordered on-line (ref. RDRS 68-2007).
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