lastcall: Kai Tak Airport (IATA: HKG, ICAO: VHHH)

jueves, 20 de septiembre de 2012

Kai Tak Airport (IATA: HKG, ICAO: VHHH)

Kai Tak Airport (IATA: HKG, ICAO: VHHH) was the international airport of Hong Kong from 1925 until 1998. It was officially known as the Hong Kong International Airport from 1954 to 6 July 1998, when it was closed and replaced by the new Hong Kong International Airport. It is often known as Hong Kong Kai Tak International Airport, or simply Kai Tak, to distinguish it from its successor which is often referred to as Chek Lap Kok Airport.

A view of the old airport (Kai Tak) by Wai Kit Lam.

With numerous skyscrapers and mountains located to the north and its only runway jutting out into Victoria Harbour, landings at the airport were dramatic to experience and technically demanding for pilots. The History Channel program Most Extreme Airports ranked it as the 6th most dangerous airport in the world.

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LASTCALL - LETZTER AUFRUF

Un blog sobre aeropuertos.

Los aeropuertos son estaciones para los pasajeros de las aerolíneas y para el traslado de mercancías, donde los aviones reciben combustible, mantenimiento y reparaciones. Son espacios públicos y de tránsito, las estaciones de transporte más complejas y dinámicas debido a la importancia que ha adquirido el transporte aéreo en los últimos años.

La Real Academia de La Lengua los define como: “Terreno llano provisto de un conjunto de pistas, instalaciones y servicios destinados al tráfico regular de aviones.”

Pero más allá de la definición de la Real Academia de La Lengua, un aeropuerto es un conglomerado de culturas, es como el limbo, un espacio de tránsito donde todos están esperando por ir a otro lugar, es un lugar de contradicciones. Es un no-lugar. Es tiempo muerto. Es la última habitación de espera. Y, así todo, es el centro de la cultura contemporánea.

LastCall es un proyecto personal pero es también una invitación a que artistas y no-artistas compartan a través del blog sus experiencias y temores, sus ilusiones y enfados, a que reflexionen sobre el uso que se hace de estos nuevos espacios públicos. para analizar mediante el uso del lenguaje fotográfico la forma en que se difuminan los límites entre espacio público y privado en la terminal de un aeropuerto. Es una invitación a que expresen lo qué sienten cuándo están en un aeropuerto esperando.

En Diciembre de 2010 se celebró la primera exposición de LastCall en la Galeria PhotoarteKomite. El 21 de abril de 2011, LastCall aterrizó en Londres de la mano de Viewfinder Photography Gallery. En noviembre de 2011, LastCall aterrizó en Berlín para realizar una investigación fotográfica de dos aeropuertos que están a punto de desaparecer: Tegel y Schönefeld.

An airport is a tract of levelland where aircrafts land and take off, usually equipped with hard-surfaced landing strips, a control tower, hangars and refueling facilities, as well as accommodations for passengers and cargo. Airports are public and busy spaces, they are the most complex and dynamics station owing to the importance of the air traffic in our times.

But an airport is much more than that. An airport is a conglomeration of all cultures, it is a place of floating bodies of people in limbo, a place where everyone is waiting to be somewhere else, it is a place of contradictions. It is a so called “No-Land”, where dead time seems constantly present. An airport is the ultimate waiting room. And yet, it is a center of contemporary culture, a place where identity is scrutinized thoroughly, and also shed like a snakeskin. We become anonymous and homogeneous.

Nowdays most of the airports are big terminals where we can do a lot of things instead of flying in or out of. Airports are not only a station for passengers, with most of them being amazing architectural buildings, they are a new kind of building, something in between a station and a mall. Like big cities outside a normal city. The first and last view of such city, area, or country. Airports are places where people from everywhere can meet.

LASTCALL, is a personal project as well as an open project which was born as a reflection of many hours spent at airports waiting to fly out. Artists and non-artists have the opportunity to send their photos and opinions about the time spent at airports around the world. I invite them to reflect about the use of the new public spaces, to analyze by photo language how limits between public and private space disappear in an airport terminal.

LastCall was born on last 10th, July, 2010. It was born as a temporary which was going to finish last 7th, february, 2011, but a great public response, an individual exhibition in Ph´a´ke Bilbao: Ph'a'ke . photoartekomite another one in the Viewfinder Gallery in London in April. Last November, LastCall landed in Berlin to give us some views from inside two airports, both of them almost disappeared: Tegel and Schönefeld.