‘Ghostly Army’ marches through disused railway station in dramatic remembrance art display

Watch: ITV News Meridian's Kit Bradshaw reports on Armistice Day in the South East

A ‘ghostly army’ has begun marching through an abandoned Kent railway station, as part of a dramatic four-day art installation.

The projected images are based on archive film of British soldiers heading to the front in the Great War.

They are being beamed onto the platform walls of the former Folkestone Harbour Station where thousands of troops arrived by train to board ships bound for the continent from 1914 to 1918.

The ‘Walking with Ghosts’ exhibit got underway at 11am on Friday, Armistice Day, and will run for 84 hours, the estimated time it would have taken for all those who died from Britain and the Empire in the First World War to march past the Cenotaph.

The artwork of projected images and sound began after the national two-minute silence.

Creative producer Professor Helen Brooks told ITV News Meridian: “We hope it will give people a space to really reflect on the complexity of war – something that’s so important, particularly at the moment – and to think about the legacy of war.

“This artwork starts us in 1914 with the arrival of Belgian refugees, the departure of soldiers from Folkestone, going off to war. It then takes us right up to the present day, with the conflict in Ukraine.”

The installation is billed as an “immersive experience” and combines projected video with a soundscape, using audio of poetry, letters, diaries and newspaper accounts.

Watch: The light and sound installation on disused station platforms in Folkestone, Kent

The imagery is primarily made up of a digital recreation of the “ghostly army” which marched through Folkestone from 1914. It has taken 18 months worth of planning.

The project is produced by the University of Kent’s Gateways Partnership, using funding from the Imperial War Museums’ 14-18 NOW Legacy Fund.

Rebecca Newell, Head of Art at Imperial War Museums (IWM), said: “It’s been really important to us to look at ways that people can engage with art and artistic experiences in new ways.

“Art is not just in museums, in those buildings we all know and love, but out in the world, in this beautiful setting [in Folkestone].”

‘Walking with Ghosts’ is one of 22 art commissions across the country funded by IWM. It is free and open 24 hours a day until 11am on Monday (14 November).