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Rachael, Caroline and Maya in Block D, Bletchley Park. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.
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*** The Station X exhibition is currently in the Teleprinter room of Hut 8 at Bletchley Park***
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 are 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.
Station X was first exhibited in the Milton Keynes Gallerry Space from May 3rd to June 1st, 2012 and is currently in the Teleprinter Room, Hut 8, at Bletchley Park, with the pigeons and Alan Turing's office.
Station X was first exhibited in the Milton Keynes Gallerry Space from May 3rd to June 1st, 2012 and is currently in the Teleprinter Room, Hut 8, at Bletchley Park, with the pigeons and Alan Turing's office.
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.
