Vestervig, Denmark

Field of Stairs

Camilla Nørgård has collected materials and stories in cooperation with local residents and formed a “landscape of stoops”.
Photo: Camilla Nørgård

In Trappesletten, fragments of stairs, steps, and porches jut out from a sloped piece of land in town where they become links to the town’s sheepfolds and u-pick orchards. Bricks, glazed tiles, and decorated cornice pieces from an earlier building on the lot have become Jens Poulsen’s Stairs. School children gathered beach stones from the North Sea in the same way they did in the Stone Age and made a doormat in herringbone patterns. Old Hasle tiles, municipal curbstones, cement blocks – everything goes into the work. All the components become part of the stairs. At the lower end of the site is a large gathering basket, modelled in concrete, which was planted with perennials dug up from abandoned lots in the town. It is intended as a symbol of what we carry with us and collect. It is inspired by an older lady in town who had made just such a basket. All the gardening was done in cooperation with a local volunteer environmental group. Once a year, there is a “stoop day” on which new components may be brought in or old ones repaired.

CamillaNorgard_portrait_web
Camilla Nørgård
Artist
Partner: Campingcam
“History is not just the past. It’s common ground. Don’t look forward look around. Staircases are both private and public, belonging both to the house and the street. It is a place in between to hang out, climb to say hello, or descend to say goodbye. [The project is] an ongoing dialogue between people and their environment, or main constituents of commons and community.”
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