Fiona Campbell, Snakes and Ladders, 2019
Found and recycled materials: wood, copper wire, chicken wire, cardboard, paper, wax, steel chain, twine, copper wire, fabric, foam, wool, sisal, thread, plastic
Snakes and Ladders is a large-scale installation which interacted with B-Wing’s immense space. It comprises several dysfunctional hand-made ladders and entrail forms, ranging in scale from 7.5 to 3 metres, sited across the first floor atrium, skylight, top corridor and a cell. Snakes and Ladders is an ancient game of ups and downs with a moral about fate. Ladders represent imaginary stairways of spiritual ascension, escape, dreams and hope. Dysfunctional ladders refer to precarious lives. The work was inspired by Piranesi’s ‘The Bridge’, from The Imaginary Prisons series, resonating with Fiona's concerns around freedom and confinement, the endless human cycle of striving, greed, suffering and waste.
Skeletal structures appear winglike and bone-like, reminiscent of flight and extinct animals hung in museums. In contrast, flesh-coloured handwoven and wrapped entrail forms bewail the realities of destruction and waste surrounding us.
Are we all offenders given the state of our world today?
Snakes and Ladders is a large-scale installation which interacted with B-Wing’s immense space. It comprises several dysfunctional hand-made ladders and entrail forms, ranging in scale from 7.5 to 3 metres, sited across the first floor atrium, skylight, top corridor and a cell. Snakes and Ladders is an ancient game of ups and downs with a moral about fate. Ladders represent imaginary stairways of spiritual ascension, escape, dreams and hope. Dysfunctional ladders refer to precarious lives. The work was inspired by Piranesi’s ‘The Bridge’, from The Imaginary Prisons series, resonating with Fiona's concerns around freedom and confinement, the endless human cycle of striving, greed, suffering and waste.
Skeletal structures appear winglike and bone-like, reminiscent of flight and extinct animals hung in museums. In contrast, flesh-coloured handwoven and wrapped entrail forms bewail the realities of destruction and waste surrounding us.
Are we all offenders given the state of our world today?