Suspended stories: US airport's latest art piece transforms travel experience

If you’ve flown through Denver lately, you may have noticed the luggage hanging from the ceiling.

Painted in pastel hues mimicking the colours of the Rockies at sunrise, nearly 200 suitcases, duffel bags, backpacks, briefcases and other personal items hover above Concourse B at Denver International Airport. Arranged in a loop that resembles an infinity sign, the three-ton, 26-foot-long art installation by Thomas “Detour” Evans is meant to symbolise the stories that each traveller carries.

“Bags are so universal and hold so much history, so it felt like a no-brainer that I use them as the medium,” Detour said.

This addition, titled “It’s Not What You Take, It’s What You Bring Back,” is the latest in the airport’s vast and ambitious public art programme. The collection has long been a source of fascination - and, at times, conspiracy theories.

The airport’s reputation for artistic excellence stems partly from how the city pays for it: Denver’s “One Percent for Art” programme mandates that any capital improvement project over $1 million (R18.50m) must set aside 1 percent of the budget for public art. Given that the airport cost $4.8 billion (R88.8 billion) to build and recently underwent a $2.5bn (R46.25bn) gate expansion programme, that leaves millions of dollars for sculptures, murals and other installations.

Sam Weston, the public art and exhibitions manager at the airport, said the current value of the completed collection is about R222m, and another R203m worth of work has been approved.

Today, there are over 35 permanent pieces of art dispersed throughout the airport (though because some contain dozens of parts and are scattered, it’s closer to 250 in total).

That includes works like “Experimental Aviation” by Patty Ortiz, which consists of 140 metal paper airplanes suspended in bunches throughout the airport, and “Kinetic Light Air Curtain” by Antonette Rosato and William Maxwell, featuring 5 280 propellers in the tunnels between terminals that are backlit by blue fluorescent light and activated by the train’s movement. A panel of community members selects applications on Denver’s public art website.

Last month, artist Danielle Roney’s next pieces were installed in two atriums of the airport’s latest expansion. Titled “The Constellations,” the sculptures are based on the celestial positioning of the grouping of stars that make up the Pegasus and the Herdsman constellations as they appear above Denver on the winter and summer solstices.

Some of the current works are whimsical; others are outright surreal. A few have become the stuff of airport lore, rumoured to contain hidden messages or eerie symbolism - fuel for urban legends that have swirled for years.

One of the most infamous is “Mustang,” a rearing 32-foot cobalt stallion outside the terminal. With flared nostrils and a vein-streaked torso, the statue is better known to locals as “Blucifer,” thanks to its crimson LED flood light eyes (sometimes interpreted as a reference to the Four Horsemen of the apocalypse, but is really a nod to the artist’s father, who owned a neon shop). It doesn’t help that, during the completion of the piece, a portion detached and killed its creator, Luis Jiménez, by severing an artery in his leg.

Then there are the four vivid murals by artist Leo Tanguma, which hung in the east and west baggage claims for decades (they’re in temporary storage as the Great Hall undergoes restoration). The large-scale pieces depict detailed scenes of global conflict and ecological destruction followed by peace and healing, which was intended to be hopeful but has widely been misinterpreted as dystopian.

There are also two cast bronze gargoyles created by Terry Allen, each sitting in a suitcase atop columns near the baggage areas. Though gargoyles have historically been seen as protectors, the “Notre Denver” duo have sometimes been viewed as harbingers of evil.

These pieces, paired with the airport’s infamous (and ongoing) construction problems and a dedication marker inscribed with reference to the “New World Airport Commission” (a group that doesn’t exist but sounds similar to the New World Order, another conspiracy theory about a cabal of global elite who control the world) have caused theories - about Freemasons, the Illuminati, aliens and the airport being a pictographic guide to the apocalypse - to abound over the years.

“Many of the artworks that have been tied to conspiracy theories are also, usually, our passengers’ favourites, as well,” Weston said. “They kind of go hand-in-hand, so we definitely lean into it, but we’re always quick to educate the public that these stories are kind of fanciful and not rooted in any kind of truth.”

Already, Detour said he’s heard one prevailing conspiracy theory about his piece: that it’s made up of allegedly lost luggage. While that isn’t true, the bags do have hidden meaning - at least for now.

Each of the 183 bags was donated by a Coloradan and contains a personal history. Soon, Detour said, a QR code would be installed near the sculpture, bringing visitors who scan it to a page on the airport’s website explaining the backstory of each piece of luggage.

One, for example, was used to travel to an out-of-state adoption, while another was brought on an around-the-world trip by a woman who thought it was her last hurrah after a cancer diagnosis in the 1970s (she’s still alive today). Several were once owned by local legends, like John Mosley (a trailblaser in collegiate sports and the civil rights movement) and Cleo Parker Robinson (who founded a renowned, now 50-year-old Black dance company).

Another is a briefcase Darrell Anderson carried when he was the first male flight attendant for Denver-based Frontier Airlines, just before he became one of the first artists commissioned to create art for the airport’s opening in 1995. His piece “Patterns and Figures - Figures and Patterns” uses mosaic and terrazzo tiles on the floors of the A Gates to depict a diverse group of travellers viewed from above.

For Anderson, being a part of Detour’s installation is a full-circle moment.

“It’s nice to be part of art past and present,” Anderson said. “To be a part of this programme that provides opportunities for artists and has a tradition of creating art that continues to spark curiosity and conversation.”