OPEN SKY at Malmø Konsthall curated by Jacob Fabricius. Simone Aaberg Kærn, in the early 1990s, began working with projects relating to surveillance and control. This, however, soon turned into a fascination for the unreachable and impossible task of floating: flying in the space. Through animated flying videos, such as Air (1994), wanna fly (1995), and Royal Greenland (196), Simone Aaberg Kærn investigated and soon found a symbolic free space in the air. At first, it was animated spaces, in which she flew across the skies of Copenhagen, New York and Greenland seeking the limits of gravity and individual unassisted human flight. Soon after Simone Aaberg Kærn achieved her own flight certificate in order to produce the work, Sisters in the Sky. This was demanded by Anne Noggle, one of the female pilots, who also was portrayed in the work Sisters in the Sky (1997). Simone Aaberg Kærn’s painted portraits of female fighter pilots from Second World War was shown at and acquired by Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk. Sisters in the Sky is an impressive aesthetic and intellectual peephole of how women at that time could realize their dream of flying in a time of hardship. In the painting and sound installation, Simone Aaberg Kærn narrated their stories with a poetic, political and feministic gesture and introduced the notion of aero feminism – an aero feministic sisterhood across cultures and generations. One of Simone Aaberg Kærn’s most spectacular projects started in 2002. One day the artist read an article in a Danish newspaper about the girl Farial from Kabul in Afghanistan. Farial’s greatest wish was to become a fighter pilot. Simone Aaberg Kærn had no doubts; she had to attempt to reach her and show her how to fly. In Micro-Global Performance (2002-03) Aaberg Kærn took off in her fragile Piper Colt flight from Little Skensved, Denmark, to Kabul, Afghanistan. Micro-Global Performance is produced in collaboration with Magnus Bejmar. They flew across borders; crossing the enormous mountain range Hindukush (the Hindu Killer) to Kabul with the risk of the American Air Force would attack them. In the film Smiling in a War Zone (2005) Simone Aaberg Kærn crosses war zones and defies the military power in order to make contact to the girl Farial. She risked her own life so she could give Farial a journey in the air. In the film Farial flies the plane over Kabul. From a global perspective, the sky and the airspace are a place of battles – over power, prestige and politics. At the same time, the sky is a place of refuge for individuals, a place onto which you may project your own wishes and dreams. by Lars Grambye, Jacob Fabricius & Lotte Petersen. from the exhibition catalogue Simone Aaberg Kærn: Open Sky, Malmö Konsthall (Sweden) 2006 Used with permission of the authors and Galerie Asbæk © The authors             The Art of Flying to Kabul In 2002, the performance artist Simone Aaberg Kærn did what no one thought was possible, flying a small canvascovered plane 6000 km from Copenhagen to Kabul. FILM talked with Aaberg Kærn and co-director Magnus Bejmar about “Smiling in a War Zone – and the Art of Flying to Kabul”, an artistic statement about freedom sustained by the dream of flying. Af Annemarie Hørsman Publiceret i FILM #47, November 2005 It can’t be done, other pilots told Simone Aaberg Kærn and Magnus Bejmar. Even with a more modern plane and more money, we wouldn’t make it halfway, they said. The two of them nevertheless managed to make the remarkable journey, which they have now turned into a documentary. “Smiling in a War Zone – and the Art of Flying to Kabul” is a modern fairytale about Aaberg Kærn’s stubborn struggle to build an air bridge across two continents. We follow her persistent negotiations with air traffic controllers and generals about airspace access, and...