Melissa Laing, 2003
45 min single channel video, airline blankets, tarpaulin, guylines, plastic
Damm 4
Vienna, Austria

Harbouring I by Tentline explored the fantasies that are constructed around aviation and the figure of the flight attendant through the desire to embody the flight attendant.  The work is comprised of two parts, a 45 miniut video in which a woman enacts the flight attendant by assembling a costume and performing actions associated with flight, serving and eating an airline meal, performing a safety demonstration, walking with carry luggage. This video work is then presented within a tent constructed of airline blankets. The tent speaks both to the need for safety and reassurance within the inflight environment in the face of a separation from a usual environment, and to the individual desire for securit yand reassurance that is expressed through ritualistic enactments of fantasies.