The Red Flag

It’s difficult to know where to begin, I have pushed so many doors, followed up so many leads, often drowning in red tape just trying to get access to these places. Much time was initially lost with MOD personnel being abroad and unable to return calls or having the wrong contact names or e-mail addresses. Wherever possible I began to talk to everyone I met about the project. Gradually I began to build up a picture of the history of this area.

Living in a village on the borders of the Porton down land, many of my friends work somewhere on the Plain whether in the MOD or within the DST L laboratories themselves and were able to furnish me with some fascinating information. Eventually with time slipping quickly away, one friend with a serious amount of clout within the organisation managed to get me a meeting with the media department.

Salisbury plain is split between the land managed by the MOD for military training and the chemical and biological defence laboratories, managed by the organisation DST L. With three months having passed with little more having been achieved than a lot of e-mails whizzing back and forward I finally had meetings lined up with both organisations. Before any filming could take place, I would need to reassure them that no security would be breached.

Arriving at DST L I had the required security clearance at reception and a driver was summoned to take me to building five. ‘Wow! Building Five?’ he said with raised eyebrows, making me more than a little nervous. When I got there I was brought into a room with eight people around the table. I passed out my handouts, details of the exhibition, the proposed work and the list of the areas and items I was hoping to film in the coming months.

To cut a long story short, it was not an easy meeting. One by one we went down the list as each item was crossed off and denied. My intentions were challenged and time and time again I had to gather up my resolve and keep pushing. I had come so far to get this meeting I couldn’t let myself crumble and leave without anything gained. Eventually we agreed on a few possibilities that could be explored and a plan to move forward.

I guess I got a taste of what it’s like outside of the world of socially engaged art projects, teaching, exhibiting etc. No one was going to hold my hand through this process and it was quite clear this was going to be a seriously steep learning curve.

Part of my Re:view bursary put me in touch with a writer who, when hearing about the current project I was involved with said, ”you really must start a blog on that as the process is so worth documenting.” To be honest I’ve been so absorbed in the whole thing that I have neglected some of the documentation process so now I feel it’s time I look back and note the journey from the beginning.

Prudence Maltby is a freelance curator I have worked with before and is an artist in her own right. When she approached me to team up with herself and Henny Burnett, to create an exhibition which would coincide with the World War I centenary, I was really drawn to the focus of their subject matter. Obviously there is anything but a dearth of World War I centred projects going on but what Pru was interested in a slightly different. All of us live on the outskirts of Salisbury Plain and gradually, since moving here, I have got used to the idea of the red flags and secretive fences which curtail our movements (from Belfast will have plenty of experience of no-go areas). Pru’s project was to focus in on this space, particularly on the marking and scarring of the land as a result of its military interaction, hence the name Cicatrix – the scar of unhealed wound. Pru specifically wanted me to create a video piece for the exhibition and I instantly wanted to explore what was beyond those red flags that I pass every day of my life.

Having secured an Arts Council grant and Wiltshire Council support for the project, in October of last year we really got the go-ahead and I began to talk. I began to talk to the people whose work takes them beyond the red flags.

I discovered that Salisbury Plain is littered with ancient barrows, undisturbed as the cordoned off land has preserved much of a landscape unchanged since Neolithic times. I discovered military training grounds strewn with the wreckage of tanks used as target practice. I discovered mockups of built-up areas in Germany, Afghanistan and even the borders of my own home country. I discovered the village of Imber, emptied of his inhabitants overnight, two weeks before Christmas during World War II for training, the people of which, despite promises, were never allowed to return, and whose properties remain, ghostlike, trapped in a time warp to this day.

And I have discovered the juniper bushes. Their strange, sculpted forms pepper the landscape, but cordoning off the land which has resulted in the preservation of one of the largest chalk land expanses in Europe, not to mention numerous flora and fauna, for the juniper bush, has spelt disaster. With rabbiting from the local inhabitants and sheep keeping the grasses to a manageable level, juniper once thrived in the area, but despite a resurgence during the invasion of myxomatosis on the rabbit population in the 50’s, as the centenary approaches, sadly, most of the juniper will be reaching the end of their hundred-year life span, and their dried out skeletons litter the landscape.

But it is the land closest to where I live that I was most interested in. Beyond these fences lies the laboratories of DSTL, often simply known as Porton Down. It is here that, since the first gas attacks in World War I, experiments have continued into chemical and biological warfare. This site is infamous the world over and they are not known to open their doors to anyone. Getting access was the first task on my research list.