DISPERSALS

Built to a master design by Alexander Bulloch, advised by Edwin Lutyens in 1939, RAF Coltishall became iconic as one of the key fighter stations of WW2. Subsequently, it became a major Cold War interceptor base, in the end flying an increasingly decrepit Jaguar. Unable to adapt to newer aircraft, its end was inevitable. The anonymity and functionality of the design is fascinating- and the use of colour. Entering offices or abandoned workspaces, extraordinary commemorative art is scattered through the facility. Out on the runways and dispersal zones, a curious sense of idyll and rural calm marked the airfield out as the last of the heroic fighter/interceptor stations. The dispersals blast walls formed a network of structures like a proliferating yeast or a crystalline growth, the goal of which was to distract a high-speed antagonist in order to minimize damage from a low altitude incursion… The work takes the form of a photo essay with text