Both birds and humans have migrated for millennia, whether seeking more abundant food, or more favourable climates. Some of these journeys are regular and temporary, others more permanent, perhaps due to catastrophe or dreams of a achieving a better life elsewhere.
Currently Europe is seeing a huge influx of migrants and –stoked by the vitriol of a malicious press and an ugly political mood – it’s becoming alarmingly commonplace to consider our fellow human beings as pests, no matter how urgent their need for shelter and security. Our individual and collective capacity to help them remains largely unfulfilled.
Perhaps it would be useful to imagine a scenario where we are the migrants – climate change predictions (irrespective of whether it’s a natural cycle or mans interference at the root cause) suggest there won’t be many decades before this becomes a reality. Arguably it already is, with people displaced from their homes from the increasingly damaging floods we experience in the UK.
In Flight itself depicts both birds and people; in the end we are the same, following evolutionary paths birthed in the stars. Fluttering on the wind, lit by the sun and moon, refreshed by the falling rains, the intermingling of the white birds and the people offers a prayer of peace and love to our family in need across the globe.
The location of the installation is an unused close in Dumfries and the first work will be to clean it, to prepare a welcoming space for the flock. Experimental and expressive, the artwork will only fully take shape upon completion.
In Flight will take place during our Chapter One event on Tuesday 15th and Wednesday 16th November, in a nearby close. For details of where to find the work drop into the Bakers Oven and ask for directions. Full details about Chapter One available here
In Flight has been created by artist and photographer Morag Paterson. More details about her work available here