The UK artist Roger Hiorns has revealed there are plans to bury not one, but a small fleet of planes around the world. Hiorns’s proposal to inter a decommissioned Boeing 737 in his hometown of Birmingham was announced in February, but it is only “part of a network”, Hiorns says. “I’ve had conversations with five or six people around the world who want to bury planes.” The US, South Africa and the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea are some of the places that people have suggested.
The artist says one person plans to use the buried jetliner as a religious space. “They come to me for permission; it’s up to them how they realise the proposition,” Hiorns says.
The artist also revealed further details about his Birmingham installation, which is being realised in collaboration with the city’s Ikon Gallery. The project, Untitled (buried passenger aircraft), is billed as one of the most ambitious works of art ever made. It is due to open to the public for free between May and November next year and will follow a survey of the artist’s work at Ikon later this year (7 December-5 March 2017).
The installation anticipates the planned redevelopment in and around Icknield Port Loop, one of the UK’s largest brownfield sites, which will culminate in 1,150 new canal-side homes. Jonathan Watkins, the director of Ikon, says the developer, Urban Splash, is keen to make Hiorns’s project more long-term. “Rather than a temporary intervention, it might become a permanent feature on the site,” Watkins says.
The exact location of the proposed work, an area called Ladywood, is one of the most culturally diverse in Birmingham—minority ethnic groups make up 60% of the population. It is also one of the most economically challenged districts in the city. “I grew up just down the road; I learned to smoke with foreign students in the local pub,” Hiorns says. “There’s a familiarity here, but it’s also an alien place.”
Hiorns says he has dreamed about burying a plane since he was a child. “These things slip in and out of memory, but the origin [of the idea] was forgotten in youth and then remembered later,” he says.
Visitors will access the plane via a spiral staircase or ramp. Once inside, people will be free to wander round the cabin; the main difference will be that windows will look onto compacted soil rather than the sky. “Planes are anxious objects, they warp your sense of reality.” Hiorns says. “You can get on a plane in London and arrive in Rio and your sense of reality has shifted. This anxiety is amplified by burying the plane underground.” Work is due to start next February.