Flight (ROTOR)

Stansbie’s work is generated by collecting mundane information via search engines on the internet. She has been building these connections into a digital archive of fragments over the past 6 years. The archive is then used as a source for the creation of satellite art works; films, sculptures and installation created from individual parts of the archive and as a result the archive acts as an index to Stansbie’s practice.

A recurring sense of nostalgia pervades her films. ‘The metaphor of the archaeological dig, apt for researchers excavating boxes of papers, rummaging through store rooms and venturing into dusty warren-like archives, has become redundant with the uniform accessibility of information online. In Stansbie’s work, nostalgia rubs shoulders with the sense of geographic and chronological dislocation’ – Anna Parlane (2008).

Flight is a collection of works that has its roots within the archive. The pieces are connected to each other through the act of flight. These seemingly arbitrary pieces involve wings, aeroplanes and birds and their genealogy can be traced to the archival starting point. The fictional narratives encourage notions of flight in one’s mind, instilling a sense of leaving, loss, escape and journeys.