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A weeklong workshop conducted at the Helsinki Art Academy, November 2001. It centered on a public art proposal of mine from 1995, with the same name. Access was originally conceived in order to embellish the Lutheran Cathedral on Senate Square in Helsinki, a major piece of architecture in town with some very steep steps leading up to it. I thought it should have a wheelchair ramp prominently positioned in the middle of the stairs as well.
The piece reflected on the (in)visbility of the handicapped in society, but the idea was initially a meditation on Scandinavian society in general, its egalitarian ideals and failures, especially the failures that stem from its often patronizing and mindless ‘do goodism’. Having grown up in a neighboring perfect model state of the ’70s, countless examples with awkward results come to mind. In particular, I remember crashing down a wheelchair ramp with my bike at age four.
In the workshop, we set out to communicate the idea of the project to the world at large. The students contacted both architects and handicap organizations, gathering lots of interesting feedback. Not surprisingly, these camps seemed to be on opposite ends of the wheelchair-access issue, with some of the more militant handicap representatives forming control units to randomly investigate new buildings. The prevailing architect’s position seemed to be to be incredibly bothered with the necessity to incorporate the unavoidably ugly solutions of ramps and lifts into their designs, resulting in these features most often being hidden away.
Then we did some field research. The students found an old wheelchair in the school’s basement and headed towards Senate Square. The same morning, fresh snow had fallen on the city, glorious and untouched on the stairs themselves, but already forming slush on the streets around. Bravely, we ventured out with the wheelchair to play fake handicapped people in order to investigate the matters at stake. The immediacy of my proposal was clear: if someone could push the handicapped person, it would be a great trip up. But on the way down, the steepness and length of the steps called for a life endangering endeavor: the wheelchair would mostly likely fly off and the handicapped person would break every bone in his body.
We discussed the implications of type of material and visibility some more, imagining what the organization of lobbies and media exposure would do, the uses of permanent and semi-permanent structures, and collective celebrations of taboo subjects. Then back on site, the students experimented with what was immediately available to them as artists, making a wheelchair ramp out of snow, which was an absolutely beautiful and poetic response to it all. Then we all went to a café to warm up.
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