Preparing The Site: Ash Steps (title withheld)
Ash Steps. (Title Withheld) 2016
750 x 480 x 520mm.
paper ash
Constructed on site
Ash Steps was created for the exhibition, Preparing the Site, curated by Emma Rae Warburton and Anna Viani in response to the context and architectural features of the Bank Gallery.
The exhibition interrogated how material processes and methods of display altered the physical and metaphorical function of things and the sites that they occupy.
Ash steps references connections between two states and presents an illusion of choice, to ascend or descend. The fragility and precariousness of Ash Steps is not at first apparent, in both appearance and form it appears visually akin to concrete. However on further inspection, burnt paper visible, this essentially ephemeral material is presented as a solid yet with portent to degrade, disintegrate, ruin.
Ash steps is constructed from solely ‘paper ash’ made in twenty fires on an almost industrial scale. The paper harvested from spikes from the 2007 SPIKE IT project. (a project that located 6ft spike files in various offices for workers to impale their waste paper as an exploration of work, flow and waste.
