FLYING CARPET 

One of the stories in the One Thousand and One Nights relates how Prince Husain, the eldest son of Sultan of the Indies, travels to Bisnagar (Vijayanagara, modern-day Hampi) in India and buys a magic carpet.

This carpet is described as follows: Whoever sitteth on this carpet and willeth in thought to be taken up and set down upon other site will, in the twinkling of an eye, be borne thither, be that place nearhand or distant many a day's journey and difficult to reach. The literary traditions of several other cultures also feature magical carpets, in most cases literally flying rather than instantly transporting their passengers from place to place.

During his artist residency in Jaipur India, Francis Gomila created a series of flying carpets utilizing discarded silk-screen stencils and adding a means of `flying´to each screen, in this case jet engines, which included images of a crashed air-force fighter jet in North India. Gomila invested all the residency budget by commissioning the life prisoners of Jaipur jail to paint one of the motifs which would later be exhibited flying atop a very high ladder, where one could park their flying carpet. 

Flying Carpet produced during an artist residency in Jaipur India.