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HANG GLIDER
FROM THE SERIES: BORDERS, METHODS OF ESCAPE

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INSTALLATION IN SITU: HANG GLIDER: WOOD, FABRIC, NAILS, GLUE, THREAD.

DIMENSIONS APROX. 250 × 105 CM

SANTA INÉS AHUATEMPAN, MÉXICO.

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2022

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Borders, Methods of Escape is an ongoing project inspired by escape attempts carried out by citizens who, when faced with a totalitarian regime and heavily guarded borders, turned to invention as a strategy for escape. Using recycled or adapted materials—and knowledge drawn from books, newspapers, or atlases—they designed artifacts that were as daring as they were precarious: machines that moved suspended from high-voltage cables, hot-air balloons, improvised wings for flying, or diving suits to cross rivers and seas. Although many of these devices did not comply with the physical and mechanical principles required, they embodied a creative impulse shaped by urgency and the desire for freedom.

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Within this context falls Construction of the Migrant Object No. I: Hang Glider, inspired by the attempt made in 1984 by Jiří Jedlička and Josef Kutra in what was then Czechoslovakia. Handmade, the hang glider took off at dawn between the villages of Kulov, Klentice, and Bavory. The attempt failed when the propeller broke and the apparatus fell from a height of five meters: Jedlička survived, but Kutra lost his life. By revisiting this episode from the present, the project reconstructs not only an object, but also the memory of an extreme gesture in which invention became a form of resistance.

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