Notes

The theme of gambling is one that runs through Lyndi Sales’ solo exhibition 1 in 11 000 000 Chances. Pippa Skotnes explains that this complex piece comprises 159 paper birds and red strings and 159 tags each burnt with a seat number, nationality, and sex of an individual from flight SA 295 that crashed into the sea on 28 October, 1987. To Skotnes, the gambling chips that are printed on the tags with the SAA logo ‘convey more than just the suggestion that long distant flight carries risk; they also convey condemnation, since the transport of illegal chemicals drastically increased that risk on flight 295 …‘Lyndi Sales’ great achievement here is to have created a body of work that is beautifully constructed, intriguing, evocative, free from sentimentality and yet so closely integrated into a personal sense of loss, even anger, and the memories of her fourteen year old self who waited for the father who would never return. She has memorialised that loss and characterised the chances of its occurrence as 1 in 11 000 000, but at the same time she has reminded us all of our own fragility and vulnerability and the forces that are way beyond our control.’¹

1. Pippa Skotnes. (2006) Curating the Gravesite: An Introduction to 1 in 11 000 000 Chances, [Online] Available: http://www.lyndisales.com/ news/2006/09/13/curating-the-gravesite-anintroduction-to-1-in-11-000-000-chances-bypippa-skotnes/ [4 December 2018].

Exhibited

Bell Roberts Gallery, Cape Town, Lyndi Sales, 1 in 11 000 000 Chances, 13 September to 7 October 2006.