High heeled shoes, heels made of oak from the Roman Limes road (125 AD) built under Emperor Hadrian, and leather worn centuries ago, both excavated in South Holland and deselected for museum collections or further research, 2026.
Judith Sanders made TERRA FIRMA as selected designer-artist for the exhibition EX SITU – Matter in Translation. Shoes crafted together with Wout Speyers. Each pole is labeled with a number, with which you can trace back all information about the place where it was found, the function of the poles etc. This number is also visible on the shoes.
TERRA FIRMA reworks this material into footwear, worn on the body rather than kept below the surface. The oak poles originally functioned as underground foundation poles, driven into wet soil to stabilize the road above. In ‘TERRA FIRMA: Still Standing’, the same wood is transformed into a high heeled shoe, becoming a foundation again, now for the human body. With this project Judith wants to bring new life to this wood, which was shaped by centuries of pressure and moisture. Again it will perform structurally, this time bearing the load of a single person rather than a road.
© EX SITU – Matter in Translation.
