a balloon that flew

Rodrigo Costa 4 years ago
Venue:
The Arches Project, B9 4EE Birmingham
Contact:
0121 772 0852 (Evette)
Link:
Dates:
10-05-2019 to 14-05-2019
Description:

“I used to sit inside an empty green round plastic tub. I had ropes which were to be used to connect this improvised basket to a balloon. This balloon obviously never flew but I did.”


a balloon that flew is about repressed needs and feelings, those that have been deleted and/or
reprogrammed by society. It is about looking for and reawakening our purest, unstained self, through evoking a simpler era, a simpler being – childhood, a child.
Exploring alienation/evasion/obliviousness, pieces take form that exaggerate in scale and momentum childhood gestures and memories. There is not a search for beauty and wonder but for questioning and liberation – how can childhood play inform, extend and disturb a socially acceptable ‘adult’ and the world it was created in/from?
The exhibition is populated by diverse media (painting, sculpture, video, performance) that combines in overwhelming sets/installations of odd, DIY-like objects/pieces which expand on the artist’s child-like mentality/attitude – always busy, fuzzy, transformative and inventive. These are ‘amateurish’ expressions that incarnate the fastness and fleetness so common to children.
Everything seems to be happening, everything appears to have been created – society exists drenched in utter boredom. We have forgotten the basics, drowned the easiness and killed true will. We have cut the ropes and popped the balloon. Instead, there is a choice to wrongly feed insecurities, rage, hate, egos and depreciation. What this project proposes is a way out, a playful alternative to this reality, the reassembly of a new ‘balloon’.


Should we let our balloons fly?

a balloon that flew