Gate Pass
Gate Pass, a project by Nicole Rademacher, explores correlations between private and public gestures of familial protection as interpreted through the fixture of home gates. I examined ideas of privacy and protection through interviews and observations of the people who lived behind or passed through the gates in the Central Province of Kenya while on a 3-month residency; my research revealed a shared need for security and the lengths we go to achieve a sense of safety and stability. Gate Pass documents these impeding physical boundaries through photography and video, exploring the daily occurrences both inside and outside the gates, while revealing connections of intimacy and formality, alienation and belonging, security and vulnerability.
Installed at Los Angeles International Airport for 6 months in 2017, Gate Pass sought to create a dialogue with air travelers about security measures, a collective component of the air travel experience, encouraging reflection on issues of trust and protection.
The project was made possible through a residency with Maji Mazuri Centre in Nairobi, Kenya and received funding from many individual donors, North Carolina Arts Council, and the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
All photos by Panic Studio LA
Gate Pass, Nicole Rademacher, artist Nicole Rademacher, Kenya, Central Province Kenya, 2012, artist residency, LAX, Temporary Exhibition at LAX, DCA, City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, North Carolina Arts Council, Maji Mazuri Centre
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Gate Pass
Photo by Panic Studios LA.
2016
Three-channel video, 10:56
Six hand-cut photographic dioramas on chipboard, 11 × 13 × 2 in each
Installation dimensions variable
Gate Pass developed from three months of fieldwork in Kenya in 2012. From the apartment complex where I stayed in Kikuyu, outside Nairobi, I repeatedly returned the camera to its gate, recording across scheduled periods in the morning, daytime, and evening. Although I also recorded inside homes with permission, none of that interior footage appears in the finished work. Gate Pass remains at the threshold.
The three-channel video organizes repeated passages, pauses, exchanges, and movements around the gate. Six hand-cut photographic dioramas extend that structure spatially, layering one gate through another and collapsing different locations into constructed views where thresholds multiply and orientation becomes less stable.
Across video and diorama, the gate functions as both architecture and condition: permitting passage while restricting access, making looking possible while maintaining separation. The work stays with the instability between security, intimacy, distance, and belonging.
In 2017, Gate Pass was installed for six months in Terminal 3 at Los Angeles International Airport as a public art commission through the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. The airport placed the work within another environment organized by thresholds, restricted passage, surveillance, waiting, and permission to move.
The six photographic dioramas are currently on long-term institutional loan to the Loyola Marymount University Department of Marital & Family Therapy, 2025–27.
Support: North Carolina Arts Council Regional Artist Project Grant; individual donors; crowdfunding fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas.
LAX installation photography: Panic Studios LA.
