This piece is dedicated to the pilots, both male and female, who played their part in the Battle of Britain.

 

The average age of a fighter pilot during the war was 22 with a life expectancy of just 2-4 weeks but the story is also about all the unsung female pilots who joined the Air Transport Auxiliary and flew hazardous missions delivering Spitfires and Bombers to the front line throughout the war. ‘Parachute’ was inspired by all these people and I wanted to create something that symbolised them and their sacrifice.

 

The piece is suspended in an acrylic box over a mirror plate. It’s heart is a re-structured copy of Sarah Walters book The Night Watch - a story set in 1940’S blitz bombed London. Through the process of folding and cutting the book it became a symbolic parachute, a vessel hanging in the sky filled with images of fliers, some visible and some commemorated in the black and red crosses. Churchill rises above them all waving his famous Victory sign.