How to Meet

About

A ladder lifts you from floor to ceiling and if placed on a roof it can lift you towards the sky. This elevation to something or somewhere unknown is also a reflection on time moving forward towards the future. In 2003 the artist Ilya Kabakov began designing a series of ladders entitled How to Meet an Angel (2003). Realised through drawing, sculpture, and major public interventions, the ladders in this series often included a figure with arms raised, pointing towards the clouds. ‘It is within our powers to create the encounter to meet an angel…especially at critical moments in a person’s life…’  

Using Kabakov’s work as a starting point, artist-teachers Cordelia Cembrowicz and Menna Cominetti developed workshops for public participation at Freelands Foundation. The participants each made a rung, manipulating the material and scoring their name or message into the concrete. This exhibition is a meditation on the uncertainty of individual and collective futures. A ladder may be a route to something certain, or a way to escape.

Cembrowicz and Cominetti are embarking on their careers as artist teachers. This experience, and the constant focus on improvement that is integral to school institutions, has inspired this project.