Location: Main Level: North Gallery
The Aeronautic Visual Art Program presents an interdisciplinary exploration of landscape. AVAP exists as an independent agency that generates original artwork and collects geographical data, situating the role of the artist as a researcher within academic institutions. The organization hosts public events, launching aerostat sculptures, or aircraft, into the thermosphere (90,000-95,000 ft.). These flying machines travel over 125 miles and are intended to capture the topography of a region. Each AVAP aircraft carries a GoPro camera and contains an enclosed capsule with a paint-covered ball and a paper panel. As the craft flies, the velocity and turbulence of the flight render an automatic drawing and the camera captures a video. This exhibition includes visual documentation and site samples collected by the AVAP team over the last year in Kansas and Missouri.
Benjamin Wills, the artist, is based in Lawrence, KS. He is a Charlotte Street Foundation Artist-in-Residence and the current Catron Visiting Professor of Art at Washburn University. Wills holds an MFA in sculpture and printmaking from the University of Iowa.
