Airstrip no.1

Underwater lights, control system, 2000

Parklight commissioned five artists to make works for the night in a north-east London park.

In the half-light beyond the street-lamp’s spill, lie the park’s two lakes. Airstrip One was an absurd apparition that appeared at intervals in the dark waters. For two minutes, the lights of an underwater airstrip faded up into existence beneath the surface, momentarily illuminating the murky waters before disappearing again. In the intervals between the works illumination (and during the day), the lakes returned to their mundane urban status with no hint of the clandestine runway concealed beneath the water’s surface.