GHOST STEPS
Etched glass staircase in an historic building on a university campus
Madison, Wisconsin

“Ghost Steps” is an installation about the “presence of the past” - the importance of previous events upon our daily lives. The project reveals the legacy of this historic building, the Old Red Gym, and it unveils the traces of people and events that have shaped it.

This design for a glass staircase was inspired by imagining the previous users of the facility - the building’s ghosts and spirits - negotiating the stairs in their spirited way. The glass panels are the treads of this “phantom staircase”, presenting ghost-like images above people’s heads.

The glass panels were produced with a sandblasted photo-emulsion process, permanently etching the images onto the tempered glass. The images were acquired through the University’s historic archives, and then digitally scanned and collaged. Meant to overlap and be seen through each other, these memory-pictures suggest the layers of people and events that are embodied in this building. Facility users will be able to metaphorically look through layers of history to see a montage of historical “moments” at the Old Red Gym.