Art installation on Forbes Ave represents Fence core sample

By Jacqueline Kim

Amanda Ross-Ho, a Los Angeles-based artist, created an imposing sculpture by taking a 3D scan of the Fence, revealing each layer of paint. **Arden Ryan/ News Editor**

Carnegie Mellon students may have observed the new addition of a tall, colorful tower in front of the student residence building Forbes Beeler Apartments.

The public art, titled Untitled Core Sample (THE FENCE), was commissioned by the university and created by artist Amanda Ross-Ho and installed in front of Forbes Beeler Apartments as of this past May. Beneath its impressive, grand exterior, the work was created with the intention of telling a greater multi-layered story.

The work was inspired by the long-standing Carnegie Mellon tradition, the Fence. The Fence is an amalgamation of student passion and pounds and pounds worth of paint. Carnegie Mellon student organizations frequently paint over the Fence to celebrate and promote themselves, and over the last thirty years (since the Fence’s reconstruction in 1993), it has accumulated thousands of layers of history and storytelling.

Ross-Ho worked in close collaboration with the Johnson Family Public Art Curator Elizabeth Chodos and the Carnegie Mellon Campus Design and Facility Department (CDFD) to propose and produce this commemorative project. The work was intentionally created in line with the Simonds Principles which delineate guidelines to create “constructive and contributive” projects on campus.

“I was really hoping to find an artist who would really identify something that really resonated with students and the student run culture on campus,” Chodos said. Once Ross-Ho’s proposal was chosen and approved, construction for the public work was underway with the support of Chodos and the CDFD.

The cylindrical tower is an enlarged replica of a core sample extracted from the Fence itself. The sample was then 3D scanned at a high resolution, converted into a digital file, and reproduced as a wax model. The wax model was taken to a Foundry where it was reproduced as a large-scaled bronze replication which was then hand painted to mimic the sample. The colors and the texture of the artwork represent the several thousand layers of paint that comprise the Fence.

“The idea was to monumentalize this timeline to all of the millions of hands that had contributed to this [with] different forms of expression,” Ross-Ho shared. “My proposal was to take that core sample and create a monument to it that would also allow students to see themselves. You can’t necessarily identify which layer you participated in, but if you participated in the Fence, like over the past 30 years, you’re in there. I [wanted] to make something for students and by students.”

The work, now fully installed in front of Forbes Beeler Apartments, symbolizes the connectivity and creativity of Carnegie Mellon’s student body and the legacy of previous generations.

“As I thought about the Fence more and more, the other thing I really love about it, and was really interested in, is how much care and stewardship the students, you know, have for protecting it and keeping it alive,” Ross-Ho said. “It’s a truly shared object. And I think that for me, in some ways, that’s a perfect public artwork, right? It’s made communally. It’s taken care of communally. It’s passed down. It’s like protected, and there’s this sense of community that gets built around it.”