LadderII - Installation

One of a series of ladders made for a site specific installation project. The ladders were erected on the walls of a series of buildings inside the walls of an old jail. My thoughts were to express the idea of intended futile escape by the many prisoners kept in the jail. Over 70 were hung at this site, 12 made an almost successful escape, hundreds more died of plain bad conditions.

These ladders are meant to echo the frustration, useless ladders to nowhere. Ladders that are broken, twisted, unusable. Equally important to me was to express the idea of the land itself trying to aid escape, in the form of these "grown" ladders, but with the years of metaphorical poison that have seeped into the grounds of site over its history, even these attempts are thwarted. The ladders grow mishappen and twisted.