Thin Air (2008)
Installation description:
Entering the darkened gallery, viewers encounter a metal Quonset hut: flickering light emanates from its seams and small holes where bolts are missing, casting twinkling light onto the walls and ceiling. Peering into the hut, a black and white video can be seen depicting a female agent’s training and deployment by parachute. On the front of the hut, the door acts as a rear-projection surface for this video.

Scattered near the entrance to the hut are eight vintage suitcases. Each suitcase contains a unique audio clip that are activated when the case is picked up: Vera Atkin’s voice recounting key moments of her wartime intelligence work can be heard through a small speaker. These short sound loops are excerpts of an interview with her, conducted in 1995.

Opening a suitcase causes a waveform video of that voice recording to emerge from the black & white video. If all eight suitcases are open, the screen is filled with eight overlapping waveforms. Closing the suitcase causes the wave video to disappear.

High above the Quonset hut, a video slowly waxes and wanes the full moon dates during WWII. Transporting agents into occupied countries was extremely dangerous and was only possible on nights that were on either side of the full moon, weather permitting. Vera Atkins recalls: “We were governed by the moon -- moon periods -- the time when people where dropped…”.

In an adjoining room, loud fans can be heard as a 24-foot wide white parachute inflates. After three minutes, it is fully inflated and the fans shut off. The parachute silently and slowly deflates. The two large fans are triggered by motion sensor to turn back on after the chute has completely deflated.

The parachute is flanked by two other works: a 29-foot long sequence of colour photographs of all the contents of Hannah Senesh’s military service record, and a large projection of Telegrams of Departure, a video animation based on two of her diary entries from 1943.

Published Reviews:
The Secret Life of Women Spies, by Naomi Carniol, Toronto Star, November 9, 2008.
A Spy in the House of History, by R.M. Vaughn, Canadian Art, spring 2009.
Nina Levitt: Re-presenting Enigmatic Women, by Margaret Rodgers, Sculpture magazine, October 2009.

Click here to Download The Globe & Mail review of THIN AIR


And She Was: Installations Inspired by Women in WWII is the catalogue of this work published by the Koffler Gallery and the Robert McLaughlin Gallery. It features essays by scholar Shelley Hornstein and Relay curator Linda Jansma. Available from abc artbooks canada.

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