Earlier this week I noticed what appeared to be an art installation outside the District Court building. I noticed it in the dark of my ride home and did sort of a double take because at first glance it looked like they'd started putting a fence around an empty hill of lawn. Closer inspection revealed that the fence was a single line of fencing broken up by four locked steel doors. I wasn't sure what to make of this.
But as I continued on my way home I turned it over in my mind. The location by the courthouse, and the strongly patterned doors reminded me of prison cells.
Today I stopped and took some pictures in daylight. This first one shows one end of the fence over the top of the courthouse sign.
Here's a shot from the other end. Showing all four gates.
The more I thought about this work, the more I thought it was a pretty bold statement to be placed by the courthouse. The single wall with strongly locked doors evokes a bunch of different thoughts about incarceration. The futility of locked gates in a wall that one can simply walk around points at the futility of the lockup methodology in our criminal justice system. When there's no difference between inside and outside, those inclined toward, or forced into, criminal activity have no clear alternative to their anger or despair. Even the patterns on the individual gates with their sharp angular forms call to mind the strong emotions and conflicts faced by the imprisoned.
Being on the outside of prison bars, it reminds me of all the constraints we live under who think ourselves free. We are locked in to our economic classes. We are locked into our political ideologies. We are locked in to our consumption-based lifestyles. But while the locks that keep us in these patterns are strong, if we step back and look at the assumptions on which they are based, we can see that all of these things are like this wall of locked gates. We don't have to go through the door, we can turn around and walk straight around the wall.
I put my camera away with all these thoughts going through my head, and as I went to get back on my bike to go to work, I noticed a sign (on the post I'd leant my bike against ;-) explaining the purpose of this installation.
Don't bother trying to read the picture. There's a transcription below.
King County
Public Art Program
Office of Something IllegibleArtist-designed Gates for
East Lake Sammamish
Interim TrailEast Lake Sammamish Trail users and area residents alike will benefit from a new public art project planned along the trail corridor.
As a first step in planning artwork for the Trail, artist Don Fels has created a series of four gates inspired by Salish basket designs from the area's First Peoples. The contemporary, powder-coated steel gates will be installed in fencing that boarders [sic] a two-mile section of the interim trail.
The gate project was initiated after hearing through extensive public process that residents desire high aesthetic standards for the trail that are also cost effective.
Property owners adjacent to the fenced area may choose to have one of the gates Fels designed installed in the interim trail fencing near there [sic] property. The four gates will be sited in a repeating predetermined order.
Eligible property owners will receive information packets in the mail giving them an opportunity to join the unique artist-designed gate program.
The property owners have 60 days to decide if they would like to participate in the artist-designed gate program. The temporary gate and fencing installation will remain at the Issaquah District court through the end of January 2003 for public review.
For more information contact either: Robin Cole, 206-296-XXXX, King County Dept. of Executive Services, Facility Mgmt. Division: or Barbara Luecke, 206-296-XXXX, King County Public Art Program
Heh. Okay, so there was no comment intended on the criminal justice system. So sue me.