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Everyone dreams of flying at some point. And if a child at primary school 'De Vlieger' doesn't do it, which child does? It lives in the district of Ypenburg, where the airport of the same name used to be. It walks to school along Frits Diepenlaan, named after the founder of the aircraft construction company Avio Diepen, who later became a co-director of Fokker. Having arrived at 'De Vlieger', it climbs the steel steps and lays its head on the bronze shoulder of 'Het vliegeniersbrilletje'. Looking through the frame formed by the hand of the statue, he imagines himself to be an aviator for a moment.

The aviator's glasses' were made by Resi van der Ploeg. The work of this artist from Leiden looks very diverse. This is because the context, the users, the location and its history determine the form. Sometimes an autonomous sculpture emerges, such as 'The little aviator', sometimes it results in a collaborative project such as 'Indruk van Noord' in Leiden in 2005. The reason for this was the arrival of a unique, inner-city Vinex location called 'Nieuw Leyden'. For the project, Van der Ploeg interviewed residents of the neighbouring districts of Noorderkwartier and Groenoord and had them depict their own vision of the future of their district.

Van der Ploeg's approach to 'Indruk van Noord' is typical of a tendency in art which is internationally known as 'community art'. A certain group of artists not only want to produce autonomous art. With their work, they want to respond to what is going on in a city, neighbourhood, institution or village and involve the residents in their art projects.
In the autonomous 'Het vliegeniersbrilletje', Van der Ploeg has linked the imaginative world of children to the history of Ypenburg. But for the children, that historical connection is not the most important thing. They can fly away every day in their dreams.