During the First World War, a corner of Kensington Gardens was fenced off from public access and turned into a replica of Flanders, filled with trenches, shell holes, fake trees and decoy tanks. It became the home of the Special Works School, established by the Royal Engineers as a place to teach, display and experiment with new techniques of camouflage. Following the end of the First World War, the Camouflage Park was dismantled – but did it ever really go away?
The Special Works School was refounded this year, as a collective of artists, writers and designers who want to engage critically with this secret history.
The project was founded by writer James Wilkes and landscape architect Heather Ring, with the production support of Openvizor.
