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.
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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.
