Anna Madeleine Raupach

 Connecting Flight explores how global transportation systems expand the possibilities of human worlds yet shrink the habitable worlds of nonhuman species.  

Through laser cut punch cards, thread, and light, this work creates a complex map indicating how airports and global networks can disrupt and displace natural habitats, migration routes and communication patterns in ecological systems.

The punch cards are printed with a three-letter airport code and laser cut with the names of Australian native species recorded at the site of the new Western Sydney airport. Lengths of coloured thread link the airports which have direct flights between them. The resulting mass of thread represents the extent at which we are connected, but in doing so the accumulated lines actively diminish the cut-out text of the species’ names. This two-fold meaning is encompassed in the lighting of the work: while the entanglement of thread indicates the scale and possibility of air travel, this connectivity crosses out the names of the species that are illuminated in its shadow. 

Commissioned for FLIGHT, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney Festival, 2023.