Title: DISARM

Year: 2024

Media: Graphite on Paper

Size: 44 x 50cm

About the work: Capturing the contradictory phenomena of military fly-overs “a raw moment of extreme weather,” Banners drawing of a flypast juxtaposes a display of military prowess with the work’s own longing, an over-reaching ambition for an escape from humanity’s incessant assault on its people and its planet. 

Representing state-of-the-art fighter jets from a variety of often conflicting global military powers, the aircraft are named after forces of nature: D = Leopard, I = Typhoon, S = Lightening, A = Falcon, R = Hawk, M = Blinder. Banners drawing is both fragile and epic, through it Banner explores the potential of language to make an impact and exist both in and  beyond the naïve or clichéd. In this work language is in action, subversive and demonstrative.

Bio: Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press. As her moniker suggests language and publishing are at the heart of her practice - Banner’s attitude is at once playful and often performative. Her work centres on the problems and possibilities of language, both written and metaphorical. 

In 1997, Banner started her own publishing imprint The Vanity Press, with her monumental The Nam. She has since published many works, as books, sculptural objects or performances. In 2009 she issued herself an ISBN number and registered herself as a publication under her own name, a sort of self-portrait as a book. Most recently, in 2024 she created a military flypast, in which the jets spelled out the word Disarm, which was screened daily at Piccadilly Lights in the centre of London.