Birmingham - A Turner Prize-nominated artist will bury a Boeing 737 jet under derelict land outside Birmingham in a large-scale installation which requires a £250 000 grant from Arts Council England.
Roger Hiorns has spent four years planning the jet burial, a conceptual work which is designed to “amplify the contemporary anxiety which the object holds over us”.
The Birmingham-born artist, 39, who was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2009, admits that the buried plane will be invisible to most spectators and may repel others.
“Some people will refuse to go anywhere near it,” said the artist, who plans to bury the plane seven metres below ground and will allow visitors unconcerned by claustrophobia access to the fuselage via a narrow spiral staircase.
Hiorns has identified a patch of industrial wasteland at Icknield Port Loop, a canal-side regeneration site in Birmingham, for the project, which he hopes to stage next summer. A decommissioned Boeing 737 has been sourced from an aircraft-breaking firm in Gloucestershire. Hiorns said he has already had “very enthusiastic discussions” with the Arts Council.
A planning application will be lodged with Birmingham City Council for the temporary installation, staged in collaboration with the city's Ikon Gallery.
Hiorns, who previously filled the engines of a Boeing EC-135c surveillance aircraft with crushed anti-depressant drugs for a sculpture, explained: “I'm presenting a space that's deeply familiar but filled with anxiety and increasing the level of anxiety by placing the compressed atmosphere of an aluminium shell underground. The hole will lead people towards an adverse experience.”
Fundraising has begun for the installation and Jonathan Watkins, Ikon Gallery director, said: “If you have a claustrophobic tendency it may not be for you but we think the plane will be a quiet place for reflection.”
Hiorns' idea is not unique. Swiss artist Christoph Büchel is raising $1.5m (£1m) to bury a decommissioned Boeing 727 in the Mojave desert and an environmental collective called Bury The Jumbo plans to bury an aeroplane in collaboration with airline Swiss.
Birmingham City Council said it was awaiting an official planning application.
The Independent