Jan Kopp
Connecting Flights
May - June 1999Based on a proposal by the artist Jan Kopp, Connecting Flights is a collaboration between a photographer Akiko, a graphic designer Sylvie Astié, and artconnexion. The project consists of the construction of an imaginary airport through the juxtaposition of multiple images on four different postcards. 40,000 postcards were distributed by Cart'com in various cafés, restaurants, theatres, cinemas and other places of entertainment in the city of Lille.
Each postcard is printed at the address of artconnexion, which thus becomes the location of the potential siting of the airport.
Connecting Flights is an intervention in the urban space that invites the public to participate. This participation (sending the postcard) transforms the project into an exhibition in a private place - the flat that serves as artconnexion’s base. The fact of participating in the construction of the airport is not explicit. The address of artconnexion as the recipient is the only clue. The project thus has a hazardous dimension. It is not a marketing strategy, the initiative is left to the public to seize the opportunity of a potential encounter around a fictitious place of travel.
With the trivialisation of new means of communication, the very limits of art are still being tested, and art, in turn, is testing the limits of the world. Artists continue to address the issues of the world, and those who believe in society are increasingly forced to play a role locally. For even with all the possibilities of virtual communication, artists must continue to be mobile: their presence is vital.
To be an artist today is also to be from nowhere, to be on the road, in transit, in train stations and airports. There is no longer a "centre", no longer a studio, another art project has to be done. To avoid the accumulation of objects, only a series of connections through which the work makes sense, once installed, in place.
Connecting Flights questions the various ways in which artists can work and questions their place in the urban space.
This project also alludes to Jan Kopp's sound installation, Les vacances de Rapholder, organised in the covered market of Cambrai by the association Ic'art and artconnexion.