Michael Schoorl

The Folding Staircase

forged and fabricated steel, reclaimed wood, enamel, oil paint, acrylic paint, leaf gold, hemp rope, aluminium, bronze.

The folding staircase is a installation that functions around a wooden frame on wheels that supports a steel folding staircase supported by ropes and pulleys.
This is a interactive sculpture that is only fully visible when you interact with it. when you do so you are also confronted with the materiality of the object, the sound, the strength and the weight become tangible. Painted sheet metal and many hinges move Together, building and break down simultaneously.
I see these symbolic acts of maintaining and use as the inevitable changes we are faced with.
By taking the rope in our own hands the people emancipate themselves we take control over the space we inhabit and grief it when it comes down so we can rest our hands and build it back up, together. It is a symbolic or ritualistic tool that focusses on the interdependedness of the creative process.
It originates out of my growing environmental worries and the existential worries that come with it. Why do we keep making in a world that does not need more stuff? What is the function of craft and art in reimaging how we should live in reciprocity with nature. The result of my research had lead me to making a sculpture where all the parts are made with great attention to crafts details and personal expression.
But for it to function collaboration is a must. I would like to see the installation part of a performance that engages the audience physically and mentally. To paint a wall would take 13 people with this tool but by doing so we question our individuality in a larger whole. The experiment aims to discuss the origin of our resources human and non human.