Professor Helen Brooks (Arts) and Professor Mark Connelly (History) were part of the creative team that developed the successful and moving immersive art installation, Walking With Ghosts, which was held in Folkestone between Friday 11 – Monday 14 November 2022.
The installation was part of the IWM 14-18 NOW Legacy Fund, a national programme of 22 artist commissions inspired by the heritage of conflict. Walking With Ghosts featured a multimedia immersive installation in Folkestone’s decommissioned Harbour Arm railway station. The station was the main port of departure for British troops during the First World War who were heading to the Western Front. The installation included archival film of soldiers projected onto the walls of the station as well as a moving soundscape of accounts of war ranging from the First World War to the current conflict in Ukraine.
It is estimated that around 20,000 people visited the exhibition, which ran continuously for 84 hours over Remembrance weekend. The durational nature of the artwork was inspired by Fabian Ware, who was Vice-Chairman of the Imperial War Graves Commission. In 1928 he estimated that it would take the ‘ghostly army of the dead of the Imperial forces’ 84 hours to march past the Cenotaph. Walking With Ghosts made manifest this sombre statistic, bringing to life and to light, through its ghostly projections, the memory of the many soldiers who passed through Folkestone on their journey to the Western Front.