John Kippin: SSSI Greenham Common
In 1999, John Kippin was commissioned by the visual arts agency Artpoint to photograph the former American airbase at Greenham Common, most famous for the Women’s Peace Camp which surrounded it in the 1980s.
In 2001, he published the photographs he took there in the book Cold War Pastoral and exhibited the work, first at the Imperial War Museum and then in Building 150 at Greenham Common itself. I visited the latter exhibition on 2 September, 2001.
In 2005, Artpoint published a collection of projects they had commissioned and I was asked to write this essay to accompany Kippin’s pictures; see Ruth Charity ed, Reviews: Artists and Public Space, Black Dog, London, 2005.
The picture opposite was taken by myself during the visit to Building 150 in 2001. The photograph accompanying the essay is courtesy and copyright of John Kippin.
