Ruined Roads

Ruined Roads is a site-specific installation of second-hand classic books laid as a walkway that audiences are invited to use. Conceptually multilayered, Ruined Roads is a commentary on how books often function as symbols of canonised sacred wisdom in western culture. Many of us do not dare to desecrate them, yet we have a history of willingly damaging symbols of sacred wisdom from ‘othered’ cultures. Ruined Roads also reflects on the current disintegration of western culture, particularly the abundance of concrete beneath our feet that separates us from the earth, arguably the greatest source of wisdom available to us. With such thoughts in mind, will audiences choose to walk on the Ruined Roads? If so, what responses will be elicited?

Ruined Roads reflects on Jessica Raschke’s experience of growing up in the highly urbanised and industrialised western suburbs of Melbourne (Victoria, Australia), then moving to the rural and bucolic Southern Highlands (NSW, Australia). Now that she is inculcated to expect soil rather than concrete beneath her feet, Raschke often experiences a kind of cognitive dissonance or culture shock when she realises that – in urban settings – her feet are rarely in contact with the land. Instead, they are almost always in contact with concrete. This vision of layers of concrete that separate humans from the land is an act of spoiling or desecrating or covering up the land, including its wisdom and knowledge. With these reflections in mind, Ruined Roads also seeks to challenge western understandings of wisdom and knowledge, and our relationships to the land.

In memory of Hans-Dieter Raschke.