ABSTRACT
Taking leave: a process of departure, an invocation of the right to leisure, and a sense of the end of a phase of life.
All of these factors have some purchase in the analysis of UK military sites that have become run-down, redundant, and abandoned. The process of abandonment can stir deep emotional responses in personnel, surrounding residents (most recently at RAF Leuchars, in the process of drawdown and transfer to the army) and in elements of the wider public. Site closures are occasions when the mobilisation of memory becomes a shared process, engaging civilian and military populations. The role of film and photography in commemorative events in military culture is well understood institutionally. Military unit photographers accompany royal visits, passing-out parades, disbandments and a wide variety of formal occasions. Media training, press officers and an active public relations organisation produce many contexts for image-making on bases. Displays, parades, speeches and dances are held; these events have a public face and are widely reported, drawing on local media and publics to share the specificity of the site and its histories. Unusually, in the case of the drawdown and closure of RAF Coltishall in North Norfolk, three contemporary digital artists were invited in to document the site, the personnel and behaviours around withdrawal from one of the RAF’s most iconic sites.
