Events

PLANESPOTTING
The first A380 on the Isle of Grain
530pm Thursday 28 November
Herbert Read Gallery

You are warmly invited to the opening of:

PLANESPOTTING, the first A380 on the Isle of Grain

an exhibition by John Bell and Master of Architecture students.

The plans for the world’s largest airport on the Isle of Grain have made much of the strategic advantages of the location. We wondered what we could do to get a sense of the embodied presence of such overwhelming infrastructure in a way which was more immediate than the sanitised cgi pictures we see in the media. So we decided to make an Airbus A380, the largest passenger plane currently in use. This aircraft and others of similar size will be the major users of the airport, should it be approved.

In order to construct the plane in the short time we had available, we decided to eliminate anything tricky or expensive… which left us with the navigation lights.

The use of lights in a marshland location connects the piece to the will-o'-the-wisp or ignis fatuus "foolish fire”: atmospheric ghost lights seen by travellers at night, especially over bogs, swamps or marshes. The phenomena resemble flickering lamps and are said to recede if approached, drawing travellers from safe paths...

Also in the show is a range of strategic research made by some of the students in the 1st year of the Master of Architecture programme.

530pm, Herbert Read Gallery, UCA Canterbury

New Dover Road, CT1 3AN[gallery columns="2" ids="3564,3565,3566,3567,3568,3569,3570,3571"]