Messages in the Sky continues the artists’ ongoing investigation of air transport. As part of the exhibition, a new artwork Wanderlust Terra Firma, was made in collaboration with Mudgee Youth Services. The artwork was created on Cirrus aircraft wings that were salvaged by the artists from a crash during a landing in Ballarat, Victoria in January 2022. Appropriately, the registration of the aircraft is ‘WTF’, the acronym behind the artwork’s name. The piece comprises découpage made from vintage National Geographic magazines kindly donated by members of the local community.

The exhibition also includes Team Spirit, a new video artwork that was created as part of an artist residency at Yui-Port, Niigita, Japan, where they collected footage from the yearly Shirone Giant Kite Festival. Dating back to the mid 1800’s the festival features enormous kites up to 12 metres in length, known as ‘odako’ that are flown during the event. The kites are intricately designed and decorated with colourful patterns, often featuring mythical creatures, historical figures, or traditional Japanese motifs. Teams of kite flyers, consisting of community members and local organisations, gather at the festival to compete in kite battles where the object is to entangle the strings of rival kites and bring them down, showcasing the skill, strength, and teamwork of the participants.

Additional pieces in the exhibition include repurposed decommissioned helicopter parts, such as fuselage components or tail fins, that have been transformed into oversized kite-like objects. Vibrant colours and intricate patterns give these mechanical components an element of whimsy, reminiscent of traditional kites however the weight of the ‘kites’ paradoxically negates their inherent functionality.

We have reversed the evolution of manned flight by taking Australian Air Force surplus plane parts and with a bit of paint and string, turned them back into kites. We have used traditional Japanese kite designs… Japanese kites are not representative of a culturally hermetic system and are therefore a great visual example of transculturation. Our aim is to re-focus on the here and now without suffering from cultural myopia.
Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro, exhibition text for You Are Here, 2021

An additional collaborative work Wishes for the Skies also invited the wider local community to contribute by drawing and writing their personal wishes on the sails of a giant tetrahedral kite which references Alexander Graham Bell’s early flying inventions.

Messages in the Sky was made possible with with support of The Australia Council for the Arts & Create NSW.