A Ladder for creeping charlie & bittersweet nightshade

Chicago Botanic Garden, 2022

Walls and barriers have been a part of human life since the dawn of time. Whether physical barriers like the Berlin Wall, the U.S.-Mexico border walls, the West Bank barrier, or systemic barriers like redlining and wealth gaps, barriers are designed to keep people/things in or out. Majeed’s A Ladder for Creeping Charlie & Bittersweet Night Shade thinks about what happens when the unwanted are supported to peek over the fence. What is the counter measure to the barrier? How does the unwanted transcend the obstacles and impediments preventing them from achieving freedom and/or success? In this work, a ladder becomes a metaphor of transcendence and forward mobility; It’s the counter measure to the wall.

A Ladder for Creeping Charlie & Bittersweet Night Shade visually takes its inspiration from the work of traditional African blacksmiths as well as the early ornamental iron work of Charleston, Virginia (1700s & 1800s). Blacksmiths like Phillip Simmons (1912-2009) were innovators of this tradition in that he incorporated low country motifs like native plants and wildlife into his ornamental works. Additional inspirations include Richard Hunt’s Jacob’s Ladder and Martin Puryear’s Ladder for Booker T. Washington.