Terminal, Terminal

For her solo exhibition Terminal, Terminal, Selma Gültoprak has conceived a site-specific installation for the Kunst-Station Sankt Peter in Cologne. Air travel has long since lost its glamour, but also its light-heartedness. In the nineties, travelling in the Concorde was still considered the epitome of luxury and the symbol of an international jet set elite, but today – at least in economy class – air travel shame is spreading. Flying is known to be the most climate-damaging form of transport. Around one billion tonnes of CO2 are emitted annually by commercial aircraft alone. Not all of these flights are taken voluntarily: Germany deported more than 5,000 people by plane to “safe countries of origin” in 2021. And not all flights end with a safe landing. The installation Terminal, Terminal, developed by Selma Gültoprak especially for the Kunst-Station Sankt Peter, remains grounded – consciously and symbolically. In the central nave of the church, she collects thousands of individual airline tickets and boarding passes. The faithfully reproduced documents bear witness to holiday trips on budget airlines, journeys in First Class, intercontinental long-haul flights – and historical events that have become part of our collective memory, such as the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Each of these tickets represents a personal fate: for example, that of the 298 passengers on Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which was shot down by Russian forces over eastern Ukraine in 2014. Or that of 21-year-old Elin Ersson, who refused to take her seat on the flight from Gothenburg to Turkey in 2018, with the aim of preventing the deportation of asylum seekers to Afghanistan. They tell of crashes, pilot suicides and other disasters, but also of record-breaking frequent flyers like K. Ullas Kamath from India and airlines like Virgin Atlantic Airlines, whose crew members are allowed to wear the uniform that best matches their gender identity. In meticulous research work, the Cologne artist who profoundly and critically explores social issues in her interventions in public space, collages and installations, has compiled these individual fates and boarding card designs and presents them in Sankt Peter as a large floor work in the form of the popular Batman symbol. With the distress signal familiar from the DC Comics, not only does the profane meet the sacred in the church space and the fictional the real, but Selma Gültoprak also refers to power and powerlessness within our system determined by capital and privilege. Bruce Wayne, who watches over Gotham City, owes his superiority not to superhuman powers but to technical innovations and the financial force of his family business Wayne Enterprises, which makes billions in profits in the arms, oil and pharmaceutical industries, among others. As with real-life billionaires cum space tourists like Elon Musk and Virgin founder Richard Branson, the boundaries between personality cult, philanthropy and megalomania are blurred. The story of the Iranian refugee Mehran Karimi Nasseri, who lived in Terminal 1 of Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris without valid papers for eighteen years until his death in November 2022, was the starting point for Selma Gültoprak for additional works of works in the church’s side aisle and baptistry. The installation Untitled (My destination is not clear yet.) consists of five colored airplane trolleys of different models and airlines, from which otherwise juice and snacks are distributed. The wall installation Have you seen this airplane? made of airplane ceilings from airlines such as Pan Am, Air France and Emirates is modeled on search notices for runaway pets or stolen motorcycles. Here, however, the search is for specific aircraft models such as the Douglas DC-9 from the sixties. A closer look reveals numerous other references to films such as Wim Wenders' “Wings of Desire“, but also Turkish Superman films ("Süpermen Dönüyor") from the seventies or the French film “Bird People“, which was shot entirely at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport – all films in which the theme of flight, celestial spheres or specific aircrafts play a central role. Mehran Karimi Nasseri became world-famous not least because of the – heavily modified – film version of his fate with Tom Hanks as “Terminal Man”. While for most of us the airport terminal is the starting point of a journey to holiday destinations or to business meetings, for the stranded “Sir, Alfred“ – as for many others – it became the final stop.