Melanie Honebone (with Katerina Koulouri) - Flight exhibition

Welcome to the Flight Exhibition, a selection of artists’ mobiles celebrating Dagenham’s history of aviation and its transmigratory population. Eleven artists and eleven writers explore this multi-layered theme during March and April at the Pink Tardis Gallery, Heathway Shopping Centre, Dagenham. 

Stare through the Pink Tardis window and marvel at these suspended sculptures, prototypes, and conceptual clouds. If you can't see the exhibition in person then don't worry, we'll be featuring all seventeen artworks here on the website. Every artwork has its very own dedicated writer, and we'll publish their responses here throughout March and April 2026.

The final artwork in a fine flock of flight exhibits comes from Melanie Honebone. Although firmly ensconced in the artistic hotbed of Swansea (Wales), Melanie's artwork travels to galleries and exhibitions all over the world. Coming next on the Honebone World Art Tour will be exhibitions in Rochester (USA) and Aabenraa (Denmark). Today's writing comes from one of life's great travellers, Katerina Koulouri, the Greek poet whose words carry us on the wind.......

heading east 

heading east
in what feels like static
silence
in circles in abandonment
east often seems to be the wrong way
a byway a byway
is still a way
east often seams the back with the now 

paper cranes
I carry a few
in pockets
some in bags
inside books
they keep an eye on flying words 

crushed
where each east is to be
found 

wings
wings voids
with their curves and their lines
wings carriages
for the hows and the whys
become sieves
allowing the wise
dust to enter
in volumes and whirls

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Melanie Honebone is a Wales-based fine artist. She often works in series, providing visual responses to external stimuli such as literature, science, and music. Melanie openly describes herself as a ‘renegade arts experimentalist’ and is happy dabbling in anything that pushes her work to the limit and broadens her own potential. In her spare time she produces music videos and photography for Stone Letter Media, is attempting to learn Welsh, and likes to stroke cats.
https://melaniehonebone.wordpress.com/

Katerina Koulouri is a poet and translator from Athens, Greece. She lived in France for 5 years where she studied Oenology and Modern French Literature, and is an MA graduate in Creative Writing (poetry) from Kingston University, London. Poetry, wine and childrens’ books are her passions. She published her debut pamphlet, INVITATION TO ELSEWHERE in 2023.

Natalie Low (with Ed Arantus) - Flight Exhibition

 

Natalie Low

Welcome to the Flight Exhibition, a selection of artists’ mobiles celebrating Dagenham’s history of aviation and its transmigratory population. Eleven artists and eleven writers explore this multi-layered theme during March and April at the Pink Tardis Gallery, Heathway Shopping Centre, Dagenham. 

Stare through the Pink Tardis window and marvel at these suspended sculptures, prototypes, and conceptual clouds. If you can't see the exhibition in person then don't worry, we'll be featuring all seventeen artworks here on the website. Every artwork has its very own dedicated writer, and we'll publish their responses here throughout March and April 2026.

Today is our penultimate artwork from the Pink Tardis Gallery and we bring you a knitted sculpture by artist Natalie Low. Natalie's mysterious planet-like mobile slowly rotates to reveal it's two sides with motifs reminiscent of growth and clouds.

Our writer today is the conceptual artist Ed Arantus who provides the words to accompany Natalie's artwork.

Natalie Low

Black Sun 

I realised I would never know until I turned out the light

The faintest idea in the bulb afterglow

When it wants to die, where does the Sun go

 

Appreciating what was good after it had gone

I regret your faint memory on flickering eye

Dead or alive, where do our dreams fly

 

Before it was lost in that frail waking haze,

I knew that I saw you, and then I forgot

Lights on, lights off, the haves and have nots

Natalie Low is a creative knitter, stitcher and quilter. She lives in London, UK with her charming family. She has published two chapbooks Dementia (2015) and recently School Run (2017).

Ed Arantus is a conceptual artist and writer. He published his first work in the Censored Zine in 2010 and has exhibited his work ever since at venues like the Contemporary Arts Research Unit in Oxford and the Museum of Futures in Surbiton.

https://edarantus.blogspot.com

Stella Tripp (with Dom O'Reilly) - Flight Exhibition

Welcome to the Flight Exhibition, a selection of artists’ mobiles celebrating Dagenham’s history of aviation and its transmigratory population. Eleven artists and eleven writers explore this multi-layered theme during March and April at the Pink Tardis Gallery, Heathway Shopping Centre, Dagenham. 

Stare through the Pink Tardis window and marvel at these suspended sculptures, prototypes, and conceptual clouds. If you can't see the exhibition in person then don't worry, we'll be featuring all seventeen artworks here on the website. Every artwork has its very own dedicated writer, and we'll publish their responses here throughout March and April 2026.

The delicate ecological Chinook of Stella Tripp floats into the Flight exhibition in Dagenham today. Many of the artworks in the exhibition have been carefully balanced and weighted, hanging elegantly without tipping over. Stella's sculpture talks of Nature's beautiful balance, a celebration of different species who share the flight paths above our heads. Dom O'Reilly, champion of the underdog, gives a gentle lift to one of those creature, the humble Bumblebee. Read his response below.......

Looking at the owl on this installation I wonder what happened to the bumblebee.

Dragons, owls, lions, elephants and honey bees are commonplace in mythology and folklore around the world. Top-dollar creatures who obscure the truly wonderful.

No one can explain how bumblebees can fly given their aerodynamics. They can sting multiple types but rarely do so. They live in small colonies. Miraculous, gentle and self-sufficient are qualities worthy of a place in legend.

Perhaps they have a branding problem. Their name ‘bumble’ gives the impression of a well-meaning, likeable but clumsy and chaotic type. Maybe that’s why I identify with them.

Here’s my attempt to give them their deserved spot in folklore through an alternative version of the Ants and the Grasshopper.

In the original, the grasshopper lazed around playing music all summer and gently teased the ants for working hard together to stockpile food for the winter. One snowy day, the starving grasshopper asked the ants for food and they said ‘no – you’re on your own’.

A template for capitalism’s approach to education, housing and health. Bereft of empathy, concern and summed up as ‘I’m alright, screw you.’ As a bumblebee type, I offer a humane version.

In my telling, the Bumblebee welcomes the Grasshopper into its home. After enjoying a fine feed, the Grasshopper thanks his host with a wee bit of music. The tune gives the bumblebees the solution to passing on information on where to find the good pollen.

How? Well, they bumblebee boogie to the beat and find that they can show the way to the pollen by waggling their booty down a figure of eight shape with length giving distance and the angle joining top and bottom of the figure showing direction.

Soon, bees of all kind, bumble and honey, are doing what they call the Caterpillar Dance to show how to find the good stuff. Starvation becomes a distant memory, food is plentiful and flight times plummet. Since bees live until they expend their energy, reducing the amount of flying to find pollen sends life expectancy rocketing.

Human beekeepers later observe it and call it the Waggle Dance, crediting it to bees as they are seen as more businesslike than the bumble folk. But we know the truth.

Introducing the bumblebee into the tale gives us kindness, love and community.

Some of us are organised and work through process. Some of us are creative and work through instinct. Bumbling can bring us to an unexpected and revelatory destination. The message of my fable is that all of us are equal.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Born in Taunton, Somerset, Stella Tripp travelled to her current home in Devon, a very long way round. After a few years in Israel, Stella returned to Taunton to do a foundation course; then on to Portsmouth (BA Hons Fine Art); a few years in London; three in the USA (MA Fine Art; MFA) and a year in Cornwall, before settling in Exeter. Stella works in a wide variety of media, crossing boundaries between drawing, painting and sculpture.
www.stellatripp.co.uk

As a journalist Dom O'Reilly reported from 26 countries from Afghanistan to Serbia covering everything from Olympics to revolutions. He wrote for newspapers which included The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Toronto Globe & Mail, Glasgow Herald and Sunday Herald and The Scotsman and Sunday on Sunday. Dom is currently exploring new avenues for his creativity.

Oscar Newcombe (with Dean Reddick) - Flight exhibition

Welcome to the Flight Exhibition, a selection of artists’ mobiles celebrating Dagenham’s history of aviation and its transmigratory population. Eleven artists and eleven writers explore this multi-layered theme during March and April at the Pink Tardis Gallery, Heathway Shopping Centre, Dagenham. 

Stare through the Pink Tardis window and marvel at these suspended sculptures, prototypes, and conceptual clouds. If you can't see the exhibition in person then don't worry, we'll be featuring all seventeen artworks here on the website. Every artwork has its very own dedicated writer, and we'll publish their responses here throughout March and April 2026.

As the Artemis II astronauts launch into the unknown world beyond Earth, today down here in Dagenham Oscar Newcombe's artwork provides its own spirit of adventure. Tentacled arms hold aloft three brass framed pictures, a cycle of forgotten lives rotating in the air. Luckily Dean Reddick is on hand with his report on these wonderous objects.

Field Report 005647-Flight Medals.

‘We found the medals in a flea market in the Human Sector on Sanctuary III.
The brass bezels were dulled with a slick, greasy patina but the faces were still bright and precise.
The designs are curious, etched and penned in a bygone era when spaceflight was still an adventure, calling to the brave or reckless to fling themselves outwards.
Our researches have turned up scant provenance for the decorations:
The blue creature in Medal I is of an unknown lifeform, probably aquatic and possibly from Old Earth’s prehistory.
The meaning of the disquieting face on Medal II is obscure. We have tentatively coined it, “The Face of Rook” with reference to an ancient wargame. Perhaps this honour was awarded for strategic prowess of defensive acumen?
The final Medal appears to be a reference to the Universal Spiritual Principal of Rebirth, represented by the Cauldron of Pair Dadeni. On what grounds it was awarded we do not yet know.’

The Medals will be archived in the CC Vault awaiting further analysis.

------------------------------------------------

Oscar Newcombe is a multidisciplined artist who will be studying on the Foundation course at Kingston School of Art (Kingston University) in 2026.

Dean Reddick is an artist and an art therapist. He frequently works with casting processes and loves drawing trees.
https://deanreddick.blogspot.com/

Natalie Low (with Dean Reddick) - Flight Exhibition

 

Natalie Low

Welcome to the Flight Exhibition, a selection of artists’ mobiles celebrating Dagenham’s history of aviation and its transmigratory population. Eleven artists and eleven writers explore this multi-layered theme during March and April at the Pink Tardis Gallery, Heathway Shopping Centre, Dagenham. 

Stare through the Pink Tardis window and marvel at these suspended sculptures, prototypes, and conceptual clouds. If you can't see the exhibition in person then don't worry, we'll be featuring all seventeen artworks here on the website. Every artwork has its very own dedicated writer, and we'll publish their responses here throughout March and April 2026.

Hanging majestically and serenely in the Pink Tardis Gallery, amongst the mayhem of maniacal machinery, is Natalie Low's hand knitted sculpture. This bold bird reminds us that London is home to a wide variety and huge numbers of birds and that cities and nature are intimately entwined. Natalie shows us once again what a versatile and adept artist she is, turning her hand from writing to knitting for the first of two art works created for the exhibition.

Dean Reddick provides a haiku style poem for Natalie's mobile.

The well-hung goose, hung

Flightless, like a Kakapo

Bald, its quills for me

Natalie Low is a creative knitter, stitcher and quilter. She lives in London, UK with her charming family.  

Dean Reddick is an artist and an art therapist. He frequently works with casting processes and loves drawing trees.
https://deanreddick.blogspot.com/

Alban Low (with Jack Low) - Flight exhibition

Welcome to the Flight Exhibition, a selection of artists’ mobiles celebrating Dagenham’s history of aviation and its transmigratory population. Eleven artists and eleven writers explore this multi-layered theme during March and April at the Pink Tardis Gallery, Heathway Shopping Centre, Dagenham. 

Stare through the Pink Tardis window and marvel at these suspended sculptures, prototypes, and conceptual clouds. If you can't see the exhibition in person then don't worry, we'll be featuring all seventeen artworks here on the website. Every artwork has its very own dedicated writer, and we'll publish their responses here throughout March and April 2026.

More than the sum of its parts, an expression that could describe the Flight exhibition itself. After all the Pink Tardis contains all these artworks, created in isolation in artists' studios across the globe, but here they come together as a flock of brilliant ideas that capture the imagination. Today's artwork by Alban Low is a Frankenstein creation, coming alive with a nuts and bolts moan. The words below are from Jack Low, they come from the heart, just one part that makes a person.

i am made up of shopping lists,
thank you notes,
threadbare sleeves in knitted jumpers,
tool kits full of spare nails,
hand me downs,
the pain of having nothing to show for it,
scraps of christmas wrapping paper,
plastic waterbottles,
odd socks paired together,
washed up takeaway tubs,
my mothers eyes but not her smile,
boxes that live on top of the wardrobe,
memories of being a little girl,
the scars that cut across my chest,
round gold glasses that haven’t been worn,
sunday meetings,
coffee orders,
guilt that sits with me in the morning before anyone has woken up,
the phone calls i’ve missed,
books borrowed off my sister that sit on my shelf,
empty filter and paper packets,
refolded laundry,
haircuts on the bathroom floor,
handwritten recipes,

i am made up of the sins committed against me,
unfinished loyalty cards,
anger that i couldn’t feel without questioning my faith,
rewatched movies,
keyrings from cities i haven’t seen,
freefalls from fig trees,
fridge magnets,
early mornings swimming in the sea,
broken sobriety,
tshirts i won’t grow into,
tattoos of childhood cartoons,
i am masculinity that was born with a fear of itself,
i am regretful and i am grateful

--------------------------------------------------------

Alban Low is an artist and illustrator, working in a signature graphic style for album covers and specialising in impromptu portraits of jazz musicians. Alban is a founder member of the Artists' collective  Collect Connect and is a tireless creative force in realising the many exhibitions that the collective host.
http://albanlow.com/

Jack Low is a Brighton based writer who often finds inspiration from the community around him.