Adam Frelin

The Ladder

single-channel video
2-minutes
2005

While in residence at the Vermont Studio Center I recreated an absurdly long ladder, the image of which I had come across in a 19th century mining photograph. Initially I planned to use the ladder in a restaging of the historical photograph, but while watching my friends carrying it through the forest to the shooting location I knew it would be more interesting to utilize it as a performative prop. Like a film strip, the rigidity and starkness of the ladder contrasted with the organic lushness of the forest. The precarious journey of the performers was marked by a continual negotiation between the object and the landscape.