Review by Josephine Vistal Gibbs
Deborah Phillips won the Royal Blind Society award for best sculpture. This sculpture is located in the domain, opposite the Art Gallery of New South Wales. She named it ‘Speaker’s Corner’, as one of the stops in the city of Sydney sculpture walk http://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/welcome_to_bgt/royal_botanic_gardens/
The domain is host to speakers who regularly comes to the park and speak on controversial issues such as philosophy and religion.
Speaker
Phillips has made a comment on the intangibles such as the strength of people’s conviction in this sculpture. Its bright fire engine red colour is clearly shouting for attention as the speaker’s themselves. The steps has the words, speak, question, ponder, heckle and listen inscribed on the steps.
What was she trying to say?
For me its says of the hierarchical way of understanding metaphysics. First one is first interested in the issues of faith and the questions of existence, ‘why are we here, what is the meaning of life, etc’ and this manifested in thequestioning and in the search for answers. For me this is the second highest pinnacle when a unconscious human beings suddenly wants to ask these transcendental questions.
The second stage descends by pondering the answers put forward by philosophers or the great thinkers- this is not quite as noble as the first because one is almost seduced or coerced by their ideas. The third is that welisten to the particular bent on how to see the world and we defend this paradigms even to the cost of one’s life and kin. The fourth is that we heckleand try to prove that other people’s point of view or beliefs.
It seems sad that we often denigrate these people and try very hard to prove how stupid people are when they do not believe as we do. Wars have come to pass and will come to pass because of this intolerance. It was interesting that Phillips has the word ‘Speak’ on the pinnacle (the highest step). I think it means that she consider being able to speak one’s mind at the Speaker’s corner as the most precious right of free human beings. This is a right and privilege for Sydney residents since the 1800’s. It has a long history valued for this very reason.
As a work of art, what are its good points?
The ladder symbolism has been used by artists since the religious paintings were one. It has a rich iconography of signs- as transcendence and elevation or descension, a culture signpost for the cultured and the ontologically aware. Perhaps, Led Zeppelin was on to something when they penned ‘Stairway to Heaven’. Visually, its colour is very appealing and grabs your attention. I felt that I had to touch it and wanted to move it about- disappointed because it is anchored firmly on the ground. The ladder is not very tall, I expected something smaller actually since I see the speakers actually stand on milk crates. I actually thought it was really being used and is taken home on Sunday nights. It was embarassing to find it is there for good and that it is located further away from where the speakers congregate. Its form is rich in connotation but it has shortcomings.
Why does it often get overlooked?
I think that ladders are so ordinary people just overlooked it. I think that if it had a different shape, if it was hanging in midair, it might be more noticeable. Although I like the words she put there and how appropriate they are for the piece, she could have used different fonts for each one. You might disagree with me on this one.
Phillips won this prize for good reasons. We could have had something so obscure people would not see the correlation between the title and the artwork. I like the ladder symbolism she used for the subject matter and it involves the viewer by interacting with it. My son loved it and enjoyed climbing all over the piece and pretending to be a speaker.
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