Heaven Above Tábor / Tribute To My Father

My dad has lived for airplanes since childhood. His dream was to become a pilot: when he couldn’t, he dropped out of high school and went to an aviation apprenticeship so that he could at least assemble and repair planes. He has remained faithful to his original childhood hobby till today. Over the decades he collected medals at world championships in the field of „free flight“, i.e. non-motorized aircraft, he was among others a coach of the Czech junior national team, and invented various technical improvements for aircraft construction.
What airplanes mean to my dad is poetry to me. The Heaven Over Tábor event is a symbolic tribute to his perseverance and ability to succeed in an unusual field. In a small passenger plane, I read the Zone, whose original (relatively short) text I had varied in various ways, and the author’s reading was transmitted via mobile phone to the Okraje gallery space. My intention was to read continuously throughout the flight, which was arranged for 15 minutes. However, we ended up staying in the air for three times as long, which made me deconstruct the text completely and end up creating entirely new poems and meanings in a slightly hypnotic state.

Performed as part of „The Poetry Is“ festival, 20 May 2023 in Tábor, Čápův dvůr airport.

The artwork was exhibited as an audiovisual installation as part of the Jana Orlová exhibition: Above Ground, (A)void Gallery, Prague, 10.11. – 17.11. 2023, curator Matouš Karel Zavadil. The opening included a musical improvisation with Jan Chaluš (Tree of Shadows) and Mikoláš Chadima (MCH Band).