Found and recycled materials: wood, copper wire, chicken wire, cardboard, paper, wax, plastic, steel, twine, fabric, wool, sisal, string, thread
8m x 10m x 20m
2019
Snakes and Ladders is a large-scale installation. Three of the smaller ladders were created in my Cells Residency at Town Hall Arts, Trowbridge , 2019 in response to the victorian cells. I added to these to create the series of dysfunctional ladders and hangings for B-Wing, a project I co-curated in Shepton Mallet Prison (decommissioned), 2019.
Each ladder ranges in size from 3ms to 8ms in length. The Installation spanned 10ms (height), 8ms (width) and 20ms in (length), and interacted with B Wing’s immense space. The work comprises several dysfunctional hand-made ladders and entrail forms, originally sited across the first floor atrium, skylight, top corridor and a cell in B Wing.
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?
© Copyright Fiona Campbell. All rights reserved, 2021
Photo by Dave Cable
Photo by Dave Cable
Photo by Caroline Bond
Photo by Geoff Dunlop
Photo by Geoff Dunlop
Photo by Geoff Dunlop
Photo by Guinevere King
Photo by Geoff Dunlop
Photo by Jason King
Photo by Dave Cable
John McCarthy with Fiona's rickety ladders, B-Wing. Photo by Caroline Bond
Photo by Guinevere King
Photo by Dave Cable
Photo by Dave Cable
Photo by Dave Cable
Photo by Dominic Weston
Found and recycled wood, paper, plastic, wire, wax
750cm x 250cm x 350cm
2019
Photo by Barry Cawston
This piece was partly re-made for Wells Art Contemporary 2021, as an installation suspended in the south transept of Wells Cathedral.
The winglike skeletal structure is a precarious stairway, reminiscent of flight and extinct animals hung in museums. My use of recycled and discarded materials relates to waste, our relationship with matter and nature.
Photo by Dominic Weston
Photo by Dan Hopkins
Photo by Dan Hopkins
Photo by Dominic Weston
Photo by Kathryn Sewell
Photo by Polly Hall
Created partly in situ in response to Walcot Chapel, Bath, for Materiality - an exhibition April/May 2022.
Photo by Kate McDonnell
Photo by Kate McDonnell
Photo by Kate McDonnell
Photo by Kate McDonnell
Clare Whistler responding to Snakes and Ladders II as a performance during Materiality exhibition.
Photo by Kate McDonnell
Snakes and Ladders II, with Clare Whistler responding in movement. Materiality exhibition, 2022.
Photo by Kate McDonnell
Photo by Kate McDonnell
Fiona during an artist talk, Materiality 2022. Photo by David Bird