International Airport Montello (Nevada), the latest project by Franziska Lamprecht and Hajoe Moderegger from eteam, features fictional terminals, transit lounges, and runway that occupy a ten-acre plot, purchased on eBay for less than five hundred dollars, and an abandoned airstrip.

Working with the residents of nearby Montello (population sixty-seven), they created an “airport” that includes the entire town. A number of local restaurants and businesses revamped their interior spaces to turn the town into a place “like any otherâ€? airport: its convenience store temporarily housing a gift shop of hand-decorated IAM merchandise, its two bars, and its plateaus, outfitted with folding chairs, doubling as cheap airport lounges. The artists also organise events that would create or revitalize a culture around the airstrip, and consequently help further developments in Montello.

Explaining the ephemeral nature of the installation, Moderegger spoke of a desire “to create something emerging temporarily—that is what a town is. There is nothing here, but in a way there is everything here.”

Via rhizome < art forum. Big Red & Shiny.