THIS
STORY LAST UPDATED:
17 September 2003 1501 BST
Artangel puts Imber back on the map
Entering
Artangel's Imber
But
as the light faded, and accompanied by the Rustavi Choir, the walking
house led the candle lit procession through the village and up to
the ancient church of St. Giles.
VIDEO
and AUDIO
Click
here to listen to an interview between BBC Wiltshire's
Kelly Stooke and Co-Director of Artangel, Michael Morris
(28k)
Little
Imber on the Down
Seven Miles from any Town...
...and a good 90 miles from London.
But that didn't stop art appreciating Londoners making their way to
Artangel's latest installation at Imber.
Artangel
is an extraordinary organisation which has been behind some of the
most provocative site-specific installations in recent years.
And Imber,
nestled in the heart of the army's firing ranges on Salisbury Plain,
proved
an ideal canvas
for their latest project.
Imber is a ghost village which disappeared off the map in 1943 when
the village was requisitioned by the War Office.
Residents
were given just a month to pack up their things and leave and have
remained in exile ever since.
Artangel's Imber event promised
to lay it to rest.
From the outset the event was clouded in speculation and mystery
and attending the performance on Thursday night you could see why.
As one of the Artangel organisers remarked it's an event that's
hard to describe.
Arriving by coach visitors were greeted by an enormous canvas stretched
across the main entrance to the village.
A canvas printed with the image of a true chocolate box village,
thatch cottages, wisteria et al.
Pushing behind the canvas was like slipping behind the scenes, leaving
the magic behind and entering reality.
Albeit a ghost reality.
1
of 12
- Entrance facade shows typical Wiltshire
village
2
of 12
- Music and light is pumped from
the houses
3
of 12
- Wandering amongst the Monopoly
houses
4
of 12
- A driverless car circles the square
endlessly
5
of 12
- Smoke wafts from the renovated
house
6
of 12
- The walking house
7
of 12
- The renovated house and neighbours
8
of 12
- The
renovated house and garden
9
of 12
- Candlelit procession follows the
walking house
10
of 12
- The Rustavi Choir emerge
from the darkness
11
of 12
- Floodlit Imber
12
of 12
- Imber - The ghost village
From the
empty shells of houses, lit from inside, pumped the sound of canned
music.
A driverless Morris Minor cruised endlessly around the village square
transmitting the amplified sound of a needle stuck in the groove of
an old record.
The only sign of life was the wafting smoke from a single house in
a terrace of gutted properties.
The house, draped with a canvas facade of a pebble dash frontage,
porch and ivy clad front garden, appeared like a neat suburban idyll
at odds with it's abandoned neighbours.
Having wandered around the village it was time for the walking house
funeral procession.
The walking house, a canvas replica of Imber's Monopoly style houses,
had been lurking Pythonesque behind trees and bushes throughout the
walkabout.
But as the light faded, and accompanied by the Rustavi Choir, the
walking house led the candle lit procession through the village and
up to the ancient church of St. Giles.
Imber's church is the most intact building in the village and the
venue for a new musical work.
The new work, Imber, by the Georgian composer Giya Kancheli was performed
live by the Rustavi Choir and the Matrix ensemble and accompanied
by the Salisbury Cathedral Boys choir and a single chorister.
The music haunting, lilting and folkish seemed at home in the ancient
church but failed, ultimately, to lay Imber to rest.
Imber
View a 
More
