Museum of Miniature Found Objects

(Photographer: Les Chatfield)

The Ghost Roost is a performance by thousands of starlings. Thor McIntyre-Burnie and Chris Watson captured the sounds of these birds as they came to roost for the night on Brighton’s long-derelict West Pier in 2001, recording them from dusk to dawn. Then, in 2005, in the main hall of another decaying Victorian structure built for pleasure, the air was filled with the sounds of these birds, flying in and out of the West Pier's disintegrating ballroom, in vast, balletic flocks. These were McIntyre-Burnie and Watson’s compositions, made from their recordings of the thousands of starlings in Brighton, and used to create the installation in the main hall of Wilton's Music Hall in London, 'A Pier at Wilton's'. 

"Sitting in Wilton's, I was struck by the familiar feeling of another site, beautifully sculpted by time and filled with the distant echo of music and laughter from a bygone era, but now occupied by a colony of starlings and pigeons, the roof pierced with holes, the floor shaken by the rumbling surf beneath." (Measure.org.uk)

To hear the recordings and read more about 'A Pier at Wilton's', click here.