Explore the Development and creation of this artwork.
Snow was commissioned by the Eaton Centre's developers, Cadillac Fairview, and architect Eberhard Zeidler to provide a permanent art work to hang in a skylit galleria, which would be visible from several levels and balconies as well as from ground-level corridors spanning Dundas and Queen Streets, given that the mall is built on a slope. Snow's original intent was to depict a flight of geese breaking formation as if to land in the mall. Flight Stop appears to be a straightforward representation of sixty geese, but the work is a combination of fibreglass forms and photographs of a single goose, "one of two culled from a flock living on Toronto Island."Photographing the dead bird, Snow adjusted "the neck, wing, and tail positions and the cylindrical parts of the body". Three different body sizes were then carved in Styrofoam and, "using pattern-making techniques, two-dimensional photographic goose costumes were printed and assembled". The Styrofoam bodies were cast in fibreglass, covered in the photographic sheathes, and varnished in a tinted brown that has yellowed somewhat over time.
Strung from the roof on individual wires, the objects form a dynamic group: the poses lend variety; the play with scale maximizes depth; photographic detail heightens a sense of realism. The objects are somehow more naturalistic—goosier—than conventional sculptural representation could be, and this quality accentuates Snow's artistic comment on the nature of photographic illusion, on the tendency to suspend disbelief.
In Snow's original preparation for the work, the title was given as Flight Stop (and indicated as the "Flight Stop project" in the archival materials). However, in a number of monographs and catalogues, the work is called Flightstop. Now a tourist destination, Flight Stop is one of Snow's most famous and highly visible works, and the work has become iconic for the Toronto Eaton Centre and a part of the visual identity of the mall.
Styrofoam Eberhard Zeidler Cadillac Fairview Toronto Toronto Island fibreglass Toronto Eaton Centre