Documenting Station X: Exhibition 4th – 27th May 2012
STATION X is a collaboration between an installation artist, a photographer, a sound artist and a film maker.
The four artists are working at Bletchley Park, also known as STATION X, ‘home of the code-breakers’. Eleven thousand people worked at Bletchley Park during World War Two and were sworn to secrecy about their activities for the following 30 years. It is also the birthplace of modern information technology.
The artists are documenting some of the derelict Grade II listed buildings in which the code-breakers worked, which have always been inaccessible to the public due to their dangerous state of disrepair. Conditions are harsh in rooms that have been unventilated and occupied only by pigeons and rats for years. Some of the buildings give the impression that the workers have just downed tools and left; a rusty old coat hanger swings on a hook with a name scrawled on it and a file of technical information disintegrates on a window sill. Others provide fascinating insights into what happens when nature is left to its own devices for years.
After decades of decay there is an ongoing fundraising campaign towards the renovation of the buildings.
STATION X will provide a sensory insight into these disused buildings and the remnants of their secret past. It will offer a contemporary interpretation of what is arguably one of Britain’s most important 20th century historical sites. The exhibition will document the visual and aural histories imbued in the buildings before they are lost when the renovation takes place. Milton Keynes Gallery Project Space is the venue for the Station X exhibition from May 3rd to June 1st, 2012.
Caroline Devine is a sound artist who will be capturing the sounds produced by and within the decaying huts, exploring the spatial aspects of sound. Caroline is interested in voices that may be obscured, silenced or absent such as the employees at Bletchley who were sworn to secrecy for 30 years after the war.
Rachael Marshall is a photographer who will be conducting photographic documentation of the buildings. Having studied architecture, Rachael has an ongoing obsession with the way in which we value and preserve certain buildings.
Maya Ramsay is an installation artist who makes works using a process to lift pigment, debris and texture from surfaces in the built environment, in particular from buildings that are due to be demolished or restored. Maya specialises in making works that reference war through the associations that abstract marks can create.
The work of Luke Williams involves film, carving, construction and installation practices. Luke produces devices which co-exist with the space in which they are placed. He is interested in the narratives and reinterpretation of science.
Read an interview with Maya Ramsay here.
- This project has been assisted by funding from the Milton Keynes Community Foundation and PMC Loudspeakers
