Flight Risk 

When Headlines Take Flight

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Capturing a Moment in Time

Flight Risk began not with a found newspaper, but with one I designed from scratch. Each headline and article drew from real events shaping that period, from shifts in interest rates to political unrest to the unease of financial markets. The layout carried the weight of a traditional broadsheet, yet every line was chosen to echo the mood and uncertainty of the moment.

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Transforming the News

When the pages were complete, I folded them into a paper plane—deliberately upside down. That single act shifted the meaning: what once read as authority and stability became fragile, off-balance, unpredictable. The innocence of a paper plane, usually a child’s toy, collided with the heaviness of economic and political narrative. What results is an object that looks playful at first glance but carries the suggestion that information, no matter how serious, can be folded and redirected in an instant.

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Process and Presentation

The final work is drawn in coloured pencil on Fabriano Artistico 640 gsm paper. I focused on capturing every crease and fold with precision so the paper itself becomes the subject. Framed in clear perspex at 800 mm by 600 mm, the plane seems to hover in its own space, caught between motion and stillness.

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Meaning and Message

Flight Risk sits somewhere between documentation and metaphor. It freezes a specific atmosphere of uncertainty while questioning how much trust we place in headlines. Newsprint is designed to feel permanent, yet here it is re-shaped into an object that might be tossed across a room and forgotten. In that transformation lies the tension of the piece: authority undone, seriousness made fragile, permanence revealed as fleeting.