I found a secret nuclear bunker in the middle of the City of Manchester. This is a building which many people walk past every day, unaware of its deep, fascinating history. The building was a state secret until 1968, having been built by non-English-speaking builders brought to Britain by NATO especially for this job and then taken home upon completion. It was designed and constructed to blend in to the surrounding area – it was camouflaged.
Inspired by the documentary work of the Bechers and Dillon Marsh’s series documenting disguised phone masts in South Africa, I have documented the textures and features and form of the street-level exterior of a building that houses the entrance to a NATO-built, cold-war era secret nuclear bunker in the city centre.
Unlike the Bechers’ and Marsh’s respective works though, I do not fully document the building in context. From my nine images a viewer cannot determine the location of the building, or the size of it. The building is a little-known secret and that is represented in my images by my obfuscation of the real, total size and form of it.
Some of my images show large formations of brickwork patterns which are visually confusing to try and perceive, and some of them simply capture small details. It is my intention that after viewing my work, people are more perceptive of the hundreds of years of fascinating history around them in every street.