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The process which led to ‘Flight’ started with a newspaper advert. In January 2006 MIA announced the holding
of a competition for a sculptural installation for the new Schengen Arrivals Area which was approaching completion. By
the time the February deadline for submission of the competition
entry arrrived we had been through a million options: some totally
crazy and impossible ideas, some more practical but perhaps
more dull, and some difficult but not unreachable. We
focused on the concept of Freedom of Movement, a celebration
of what the Schengen treaty is all about. Long days were
spent sketching, discussing and researching the
concept. The idea of an artistic collaboration such
as ours was relatively unusual on the Maltese art scene but we decided that
two sets of hands better than one, two brains clicking and
whirring simultaneously better than one as well.
This also meant a greater proliferation of ideas, some individual and
some jointly conceived, but ultimately we had to whittle the
ideas down to a minimum. We felt that ‘Flight’, an idea
originally conceived as a shoal of coloured fish spiraling
upwards but then jointly distilled to a literal flight of 29
stylised figures flying in a hurly burly, carefree manner
towards a goal, had potential.
The concept won the
competition and that meant rolling up our sleeves, canceling
all non-essential appointments from March to the end of
June and dedicating ourselves seven days a week to the
sweaty, hard job that turns a heavy great lump of green clay
into a light, white sculpture in 29 parts.
Using the maquette we had prepared for the competition, we
started out by making armatures or supports for the
individual figures. Each figure was then modeled in clay
and cast in fibreglass. Painting everything white and varnishing the fibreglass figures which weighed in at about 3 kg each – a
far cry from the original clays which were extremely heavy – followed. Lastly each
figure was mounted on to a stainless steel pole which had
been pre-measured and cut according to how far it was
required to project from the backing wall The end of
the pole was inserted right through the backing wall and
secured from the back. We chose stainless steel because it
is clearly one of the materials which is so reflective of
design nowadays. We wanted to give the sculpture a subtle
‘nowness’ such that anyone seeing it in say 20 years time
would immediately connect the stainless steel element with
the period we are living in.
The reason we eventually chose to depict figures is that, although
other creatures such as birds and fish epitomise freedom of
movement, it is only humans who have the consciousness of
such freedom. In designing the way the figures would be
composed, we had to bear in mind that sculpture such as this
would be viewed in a non-gallery context and therefore
needed to have impact and immediacy. It must be attention
grabbing but need not require deep analysis,
connoisseurship, or multiple viewpoints to be ‘understood’.
The fact that figures seem to fly, unsupported from the
ground, is calculated to attract the attention of passers-by. The
figures move in an upsurge and this symbolises travel and
the freedom to discover new horizons without being
conditioned by borders, reiterating the basic Schengen
principle. We wanted the flying motion, characterised by uplifted
arms, to be joyous. and to make the entire sculpture pulsate with positive feeling.
The
figures are stylised in order to make them look
anonymous and more representative of humanity as a whole,
rather than representative of individual races and types. The stylisation also renders these figures more universal and is
calculated to grasp the attention even of children. Humour,
as well as joy, is intrinsic to this sculpture. The group of
flying figures reminds viewers that this is exactly what
they have been doing a few minutes ago and now mimics the
viewer’s flight, usually quite hurried, towards the baggage
collection point.
The element of light was also crucial to this work - it would
'colour' the work. The uniform white hue of the figures - a
bit of an ironic reference to the plaster casts of classical
sculpture - would acquire a whole range of greys under the
correct lighting. A
long time was spent discussing the type of lighting which
should be used in order to direct the focus onto the
central figure while getting the shadows of the poles to
radiate outwards, creating interesting lines of force. We
bent Etienne’s (Hydrolectric) ear regularly about this
issue and he managed to source just the light to create
exactly the effect we wanted. Mario and Clive did a
wonderful job with the fibreglass casting and are true
professionals in both technique and attitude. At the airport
Manuel Briffa and his team started out being extremely
helpful and ended up becoming good friends. It just goes to prove that a team of
knowledgeable and willing persons is crucial in putting up a
large work such as this. Our husbands and families did their
bit too. Apart from their constant support, we
frequently picked their brains and enlisted their brawn to
get the job done on time and well. Thanks go particularly to
Ben for his expertise in photography and his help in
carrying the clay figures just when we thought our spines
had had too much. |
