1997

Encampment in the Honey Fields, 113th Day, from R.E.C. Panoramic Survey Photographs from the Journals of Peter Hesselbach

American, born 1964

Inspired by an old album of photographs, Kahn and Selesnick wove an elaborate imaginary narrative around the career of Peter Hesselbach, a German pilot who set gliding records on Cape Cod. Adeptly mingling fact and fiction, with tongue in cheek, they transformed minor incidents into events of seemingly momentous importance. In this work, they depict themselves as pilots testing new gliding equipment on Hesselbach's 1936 expedition in North Wessex, England, with the Royal Excavation Corps (R.E.C.). The artists show an encounter with a field of over 170 skeps (woven straw beehives) filled with an intoxicating honey, which the team tasted with disastrous results. All but five men disappeared, and in a heavy fog the remaining members tried to fly to safety.