Snakes and Ladders is a large-scale installation comprising several dysfunctional hand-made ladders and entrail hangings, which interacts with a space. Images show it as a site-responsive installation, sited in B-Wing, Shepton Mallet Prison, Somerset, UK.
Each ladder ranges in size from 3-7.5ms in length. The installation can be adjusted to suit site, and can be dismantled and transported in sections.. The main 2 pieces are shown, but there are also 3 more smaller ladders, which can be included - or not.
Snakes and Ladders is an ancient game of ups and downs with a moral about fate. The work represents imaginary stairways of spiritual ascension, escape, dreams and hope. Skeletal structures appear winglike and bone-like, reminiscent of flight and extinct animals hung in museums. The dysfunctional ladders refer to precarity, relating to my concerns around the endless human cycle of striving, greed, suffering and waste. It asks the question - are we all offenders given the state of our world today?
The work was inspired by Piranesi’s ‘The Bridge’, from The Imaginary Prisons series.
Please see: http://fionacampbellart.co.uk/bwing for further images
