Government Surveillance Agency In UK Detailed In Photographic Installation By Trevor Paglen

"An English Landscape (American Surveillance Base near Harrogate, Yorkshire)"

Ah, the pastoral beauty of the English countryside. But what's that in the distance, just behind the majestic rolling Yorkshire hills? It's RAF Menwith Hill. Or, you might know it as a monitoring station used to assist the NSA in their global intelligence gathering.

The white radar domes, which distinguish Menwith Hill, are the focus of new photographic work by US artist Trevor Paglen (who we previously covered in a documentary), known for exploring the physical structures that house US intelligence operations: the black sites, drone bases, surveillance stations—the secretive places kept hidden from the public.

The new piece, titled An English Landscape (American Surveillance Base near Harrogate, Yorkshire), is installed at the Gloucester Road subway station in London. It'sa huge, 200-foot panoramic photograph that covers the length of the station platform (a disused one) and was commissioned by Transport for London's Art on the Underground series. The idea is that commuters coming through the station can spend the moments waiting for their train pondering the hazy, dreamy landscape—and the alien or seemingly-invisible objects that appear there.

This latest piece continues the themes of Paglen's previous survelliance work, like his night-time images of the NSA's HQ, giving a visual form and exposing the hidden infrastructures behind the intelligence services. In the piece for London Underground, a peaceful country scene—and our enjoyment of it—is puntucated by the stark geodesic-domed reality of US intelligence-gathering operations.

“This work situates itself in a tradition of artworks made in response to the British landscape," notes Paglen. "Looking back at figures such as Constable, Turner and Gainsborough, my intention is to make a contemporary version of what they saw.”

For more on Paglen check out our documentary on his work below:

Images courtesy of Art on the Underground and Four Colman Getty

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