Ghost Cargo
Chartered flight with text on sky banner.
EVENT
Planes have been passing over our heads for the past decade, unlawfully carrying unknown and untried prisoners to secret destinations. Fourteen European states have lent their airspace to the CIA’s programme of such rendition flights in the wake of 911. The flights have been stopped over Europe but a full investigation is still pending.
The flying line of text is based on a small-scale model for a large sculpture by Barbara Hepworth as her contribution to the Monument to the Unknown Political Prisoner, Tate Britain in 1953. The model remained unrealised, until now. From wood to air.
Sky banner created, chartered and flown over Leeds on the Summer Solstice, in support of the first UK wide Refugee Week (21-26 June 2011).
The event also took place one month from the launch of the sculptor Barbara Hepworth’s Museum in Wakefield, near Leeds. The first museum dedicated to a female sculptor in the country.
This work continues to exist as a short video archived online. Made and edited at the time from the many short clips taken by a number of phone users dotted around the city.
Produced by Simon Zimmerman/Writing Encounters and Leeds City Gallery. Refugee Week (21-26 June 2011).
Photos by Jonathan Turner
Flying over the city unannounced, Ghost Cargo was a transient event. Yet carried a direct message. What do we see. What do we fail to see. What goes missing. In plain sight. As a live artwork it functioned as sign-posting: an alarm call, a distress signal flown over the city sky. Later recreated as video. This still circulates.
Video credit: Multiple portable cameras and phones, edited by E. Scourti and C. Bergvall