Paper Airplane Project

A workshop-based site-specific mixed-media installation and performance that engages children to explore their creativity, visualize New Media Art as way of expression and understand the role of the artist in the community.

Baptist Coelho, an Indian visual artist took the opportunity of being on a Residency at PROGR to involve children of Realschule Bruggen, St Gallen, a school in Switzerland in his PAPER AIRPLANE PROJECT. The last session will be conducted on the 26th of November 2009.
The artist's note and concept

The PAPER AIRPLANE PROJECT, is a workshop-based site-specific mixed-media installation and performance that engages children to explore their creativity, visualize New Media Art as way of expression and understand the role of the artist in the community. I encourage children to delve into new ideas about creative play while exploring their dreams and aspirations.The PAPER AIRPLANE PROJECT, was inspired by my earlier site-specific installation entitled RE(WIND), 2006, where I used paper airplanes on a large scale.

The PAPER AIRPLANE PROJECT was expanded to involve children who would construct paper airplanes and incorporate their dreams and aspirations about adulthood. The children also constructed collaborative art works using their paper airplanes, selected objects to represent their dreams and explored New Art Media in the process. The experience culminated in a final performance with children flying their paper airplanes and attaching them to a large white cylindrical pole called the ‘Tower of Dreams’.

This experience of constructing deceptively simple paper airplanes became a communication tool for the children to creatively express themselves and visualize their own abilities and dreams. Through my practice of construction, installation and performance, the children understood that each person has a unique role to play within their community. From this collaboration, I explored his role as an artist and gave the children a better understanding about the function of art in the community.

The PAPER AIRPLANE PROJECT, became a voice for children’s dreams and will be the benchmark for ongoing collaborations with other children from various schools, located nationally and internationally. Listed here are collaborations which have been realized:
- Participation with children of Realschule Bruggen, St Gallen, Switzerland (November, 2009)
Please note the last session will be conducted on the 26th of November 2009.
- Participation with 30 children of Students' Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL), Ladakh, (August, 2008)
- Participation with 35 children of seven Non-Governmental Organisations, based in Mumbai, and facilitated by Mohile Parekh Center for the Visual Arts, Mumbai, (June, 2008)
- Participation with 80 children of École Mondiale World School, Mumbai, (February-March, 2008)

About the artist
Baptist Coelho, a practicing visual artist from India is at PROGR - Zentrum, Bern where he is on a Residency from 2 Sep to 29 Nov 2009. 

Coelho received his M.A. from BIAD, UK. His practice merges personal research with the collaboration from peo...ple of various cultures, geographies and histories. These interactions begin the process of investigation, questioning and interpretation. Baptist employs the use of atmospheric stimuli and residual work, such as found objects, to engage the participant into the story and allow them an interactive space to reflect on their own surroundings and predicaments. These works begin to take on the form of human-shaped media-landscapes and often contend with identity, space, history, culture and gender. Each project may incorporate various media such as: video, sound and architectural installation, photography, public-art, performance, found objects and site-specific work.