We are pleased to announce the first solo exhibition of the Danish artist Simone Aaberg Kærn here in Switzerland.

In her work, Simone Aaberg Kærn (born in 1968 in Copenhagen) thematises the dream of flying and the role of women in flying. With various media like photography, video and object art, Aaberg Kærn deals with the social, historical and political dimensions of aviation and assembles them in installations in the exhibition room.

Simone Aaberg Kærn: Künstlerin und Pilotin

Artist and pilot Simone Aaberg Kærn

Foto: Anna Petri, 2007

The old human dream of flying and the freedom of the "open sky" that is associated with it are recurring topics for Simone Aaberg Kærn. In 2002 for example, Simone Aaberg Kærn flew in her small aircraft from Copenhagen to Kabul via the Hindukush to enable an Afghan girl to realise her dream of flying - the performative action turned into an adventurous and risky journey, encompassing all the impediments of today's civil aviation. Also the motif of women in aviation can be found in numerous groups of her works. Her contextual examinations on the first female American military pilots of World War II, female helicopter pilots in Afghanistan or female fighter pilots in Turkey were complemented specially for our exhibition in the Kunstmuseum Thun by works on female pilots of the Swiss air force.

Sky and air space becomes the playground of power and politics, but is at the same time the location of freedom and self-realisation.

A catalogue with texts by Helen Hirsch and Dr. Maria Osietzki (D/E) with numerous images is published by Christoph Merian Verlag on the occasion of the exhibition at Kunstmuseum Thun.