Flight Safety & How Not to Drown

Flight Safety and How Not to Drown has as much to do with navigating a collapsing economy as it does sustaining a solid place to live. It relates to the struggles of existing paycheck to paycheck, house to house, or couch to couch for those living on the edge of collapse. 

 

Flight Safety is in reference to fleeing one situation to the next, in hopes the new circumstance is better. Many of the artworks use personally developed symbol from the artist's own previous situations and struggles. Flight became synonymous with fleeing a deteriorating home space to another, to another, to another… and so on. The scissor tail flycatcher, the Oklahoma state bird, has transformed into a symbol of hope for the future, an escape and refuge in another place outside of Kansas. 

 

How Not to Drown is the idea and dream of being okay, despite the looming fear of full homelessness or becoming forgotten. It's the thought of “maybe another place is better.” Sometimes, seemingly, the unknown or the ‘ocean.’ The ocean being full of the unknown, and yet we remain hopeful this space is better than the last, that it's the oasis that’s been advertised. 

 

Transitional homelessness is the central idea of these works. It doesn’t mean fully homeless, but it does mean lacking a place to settle and call home. Upon conversing with many people in this situation, the question arises- is this a problem creatives face in particular? 

 

In order to help each other navigate these situations it is more important than ever to develop small communities and networks in which people mutually support and check in on eachother while we all learn to ask for help- sometimes over and over.