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AROUND THE WORLD IN 59 HOURS OF FLIGHT

These eight City Drawing were made during the “59 Hours and 59 Minutes Flying Around the Globe” performance, an homage to the first flight (59 seconds long) by Wilbur Wright. City Drawings in Sydney, Beijing, Moscow, Kharkov, Tallinn, St. Petersburg, Stockholm and Reykjavik were made with the support of The Vilcek Foundation’s inaugural 2012 dARTboard Award.


Sydney was the first drawing made by foot and public transportation. It also was a kind of mini-drawing. While most of the drawings in cities outside of the US are 59 km long, Sydney was half that long (with 59 turns). 5 was drawn on August 7, mostly by foot, accept for one segment on the top of the 5. The drawing of number 9 was postponed until next morning with the hope that there would be more buses at that time. 8 buses were used during the drawing of the number 9; several walks including a long promenade along the alley of Centennial Park. This drawing is made in memory of Robert Hughes, who was from Sydney and died a day earlier in New York.




Moscow was realized on Sunday, August 25th with help of the head designers of the superb Moscow design studio UNLABLED. Executive web programming director Timofey Tkachenko was driving, and Irina Danilova was navigating with the help of Interior Design executive, Olga Terekhova. The City Drawing started at 13:20:00 near the Moscow University and the famous overlook of Moscow cityscape at Vorobievy Gory and finished at 18:33:43 in Danilovsky District. There are two license plate codes in the Moscow Region, 50 and 90. The first American exhibition in Soviet Union, American National Exhibition, was held in Moscow in 1959. The drawing trip passed right by the “Moscow – 59” restaurant on Oruzheinyi Drive (not far from Irina’s former Moscow apartment) and “Moscow – 59” cruise ship on the Moscow river.




Tallinn, the first City Drawing on the 59th Latitude(N), was made within 59 days after the first LATTITUDE 59 Conference, held in June by Tallinn University of Technology. Tallinn, which is in its 959th year since it was first put on a map by the Muslim cartographer Muhammad al-Idrisi, is the oldest city in Northern Europe. The drawing in was organized by Valeria Mizun. Early on August 28th the van driven by Aleksander Malyshev with Valeria and Irina left St. Petersburg and for 5 hours followed latitude 59 through Narva, to Tallinn. The City Drawing started in a lavish suburb of Tallinn at 12:50:29 and finished at 18:44:51 on someone’s nearby farm. Number 5 came close to the residence of Estonian installation artist and photographer Tanja Muravslkaja, who generously toured the "Old City" during lunch and then joined for the rest of the drawing.




Stockholm was drawn on September 1st, the 59th day after Teddy Bears, sent by activists from Stockholm, parachuted over Minsk to promote human rights in Belarus. Stockholm could still have been 859 years old at the time of the drawing or at the time of the Teddy Bear intervention. Stockholm celebrates its position with the Latitude 59 Degree North Dance Festival (59 Degrees North Tango) or a new wacky art group, 59@IKEA. The Stockholm City Drawing was made with the help of r a k e t a, an artists collaborative organization. Artist Asa Lipka Falck helped to organize the trip, Jann Lipka, photographer,drove, Irina Danilova controlled the GPS signals while trying to pronounce names of the streets and Ulrika Cristell helped with navigation. Two tunnels swallowed some parts of Number 9. The 59km drawing started at 19:52:44 and finished in record time at 21:54:43. The blue line extending from the Number 9 goes straight to one of Stockholm's sister cities - Reykjavik.




The Beijing City Drawing started at 13:40, on August 24th, not far from Beijing West Railway Station, and finished at 17:20 not far from Beijing Central Railway Station, built in 1959. Peking University professor, Dr. Junfeng Liu, was driving and his wife Lianzhe was navigating with Irina riding and controlling the tracking device. There were few signs with street names, and they were in Chinese. The help of the young professional couple was critical. By government traffic regulations, on each weekday cars with alternate plate numbers are prohibited from driving. On Friday, the only day Irina was in Beijing, numbers 1 and 6 were prohibited, while 5 and 9 freely scrolled by.




Kharkov, Irina’s native city, was a tough nut. Leading Kharkov Art Museum restorer, Svetlana Efanova, bravely drove her car over numerous bumps and through sloughs filled with water. Irina was riding and navigating. Several times Google directions led to roads with locked barriers. Once there were a dozen steps in the middle of the road. The round part of figure 9 was drawn together with Irina’s cousins: Gertrud Wimmer and Aleksandr Fesenko. The City Drawing in Kharkov was made on August 26th, 59 hours after the official beginning of Kharkov's 359th year since its foundation. The trip went by the building on Sumskaya Street where Irina lived most of the time in Kharkov; the largest market in the Ukraine, Barabashovo; and the cemetery with the graves of Irina’s great-grandmother, who died in 1959, and Irina's grandmother.




St. Petersburg was the second City Drawing on the 59th Latitude. The top of the number 9 showed a latitude of 59 degrees and 59 minutes. There are more than 159 museums, many more than 59 theaters, and more than 59 bridges in St. Petersburg. On August 29th Sergey Mizun was driving the family car with Valeria Mizun and Irina Danilova navigating. The drawing started at 20:50:11 at Moscow Prospect on Obvodny Canal, the longest canal in Saint Petersburg, which in the 19th century served as the southern limit of the city, and finished at 23:06:26 on KAD, eastern part of the ring road not far from the exit to Murmansky Highway. Sergey and Valeriya Mizun grew up and met in Murmansk. Both were born 59 years after the foundation of Murmansk during WW1. Accomodations in St. Petersburg include The Taleon Imperial Hotel at 59 Moika Emb.




The Reykjavik drawing was completed during a stopover in Iceland on Icelandair flight F1615 from Stockholm to New York. Irina drove, navigated and transmitted the GPS signal for this City Drawing in the northernmost capital city in the world, which has a metro density of 259 people per square km. The trip started at 10:55:36 and finished at 12:55:59. There was not enough time for the other "59 Things To Do in Reykjavik" that are listed on Trip Advisor, even for its top rated ride on Icelandic Horses that are under 59 inches in height. There was also no time to drive 159 km north from Reykjavik to visit Iceland’s unpaved Route 59.



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