BRACE! BRACE!

I was five when we had to leave Sri Lanka. We did so by plane. That’s I think where I first saw an air safety card.

Over the next three decades which followed, a fascination turned into an obsession – I started photographing them, air safety cards resonated something in me which I could not decipher. Over the years I created a digital archive, a photographic collection. Two years ago I realised that I had to paint them to understand them better. My paintings, inspired by the photographs I had taken earlier, were a natural next step in finding the right material I feel. For two years I travelled and experimented with different materials, techniques and crafts. I got in touch and worked with craftsmen from Italy to India. But the more I experimented the less I got closer in finding an answer in one medium alone. I used printing, stone carving, laser cutting, Pietra dura marble inlaying, collage, pottery, weaving - all forms which had an affiliation with depicting signs, promising safety or preserving memory. I painted only a number of images taken from air safety cards but unlike my other work, I realised that I loved all the forms I created them in. Especially the "Karambolage" works, which their sheer endless number of possibilities using the same paintings fascinated me. Each piece, regardless of their material created an emotion when I looked at them. I found solace in this abundance of form.

Whatever way they are realised in, I felt that they are sacred to me. Tiny and easy to understand storyboards, warning symbols, which promise safety and some form of an unrealistic strange comfort. They give an illusion of control, in a world which is beyond our control at all times. Looking back they are perhaps a memory not of what an air safety card means but all the multitude of emotions, fears and feelings the five year old me felt before boarding that plane in Colombo. Mom, dad and me left a war behind but also an identity, family and a known world. They did it so life could start again and could continue. The cards are maybe a metaphor for that distant memory. A memory of the short fleeting moment when the engines pick up speed seconds before take-off, before you find yourself somewhere anew, somewhere far, somewhere unknown.

All works done with support and guidance of master marble inlay craftsman master craftsman Mr Farhan Mohammad, Agra, India and the Kilim weaving community in Bahodi, India.

Picture work above: “PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE FROM THE AIRCRAFT”

29 x 29 x 1.5cm

Pietra-Dura marble inlay

Lapis Lazuli, Jaspar, Makrana Marble, Onyx, polished Sandstone