The Diminish And Ascend Sculpture That Looks Like An Endless Staircase Requires $700 Monthly Because Of Birds

"Somebody landed a sweet gig power washing this thing twice a month for a $700, NZ or not."

Ayoub

• Published in Interesting
• December 1, 2022

A Christchurch artwork killed at least two birds after they collided with it and got impaled. Unsurprisingly the artwork is unpopular with some for more than that reason.

Its official name is the Diminish and Ascend staircase; it has been in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens since 2016. Before moving to New Zealand, the staircase was displayed in Sydney at the "Sculpture by the Sea" exhibition.

The artwork got sculpted by New Zealand artist David McCracken and seems like a steel staircase that creates the illusion of infinity through perspective. It's seen as a "stairway to heaven" by many people, but definitely not the birds.

Birds have a hard time seeing the spike at the end of the staircase. It makes the staircase seem infinite, and when they are flying at full speed, sometimes they can end up impaling themselves.

McCracken responded to these incidents by saying: “If somebody has a photo, I’d love to see it.” according to the New Zealand website Stuff. He also added: “Obviously, I have to do something about it,” and mentioned getting rid of the metal tip and replacing it with a steel-painted silicone alternative.

The silicone tip could make the sculpture more entertaining if gulls used it to bounce off. However, the silicone addition would be more about saving wildlife than entertainment.

Here's the original post by Reddit user u/lythronax-argestes:

Some people would not consider the Diminish and Ascend staircase as artwork and see it more as a form of pest control. This unconventional pest control form is quite expensive and costs around NZ$192,000 (£98,000) to fund by the council.

Here's how the Reddit community reacted to u/lythronax-argestes' post:

More people would be interested in seeing the sculpture if that were the case.

They might consider doing it to save some money.

The birds will finally win if they stop maintaining it.

They could turn it into a business.

The birds can go wherever they want but still choose to be around the sculpture.

Birds should normally be able to avoid the sculpture.

There's a reason why those birds die there.

The sky needs to be completely free so birds don't get into accidents.

Making sure it doesn't happen again would be the appropriate reaction.

The birds basically created new job opportunities. You're welcome.

The price lines up with the cost of living in New Zealand.

Seagulls have a lot of haters out there.

These humans are so ungrateful; the birds are only trying to help.

The cost of maintaining the artwork is NZ$700 monthly, which has concerned many councilors. The contractors get paid to regularly water-blast it in the middle of the lake in which it sits to remove all the bird droppings.

But who knows, maybe the birds are big fans of the artwork and would hate to see it gone. They love hanging out on top of it and probably aren't too bothered by the deaths caused by it. If you enjoyed reading this, make sure to check out similar content on our platform.

Ayoub