HOTSHOTS 2013
Installation for High Desert Test Sites 2013: Joshua Tree - Albuquerque. (October 12-19, 2013).
Collaboration project with Victor Sidy
In May 2012, the Gladiator Fire ravaged an ecologically fragile mountain region in central Arizona, burning an area larger than the island of Manhattan. Dramatically saved by firefighters was the town of Crown King, an unpaved, historic mining town with a general store, two restaurant/bars, two churches, and a few visitor lodges: full-time population less than 100.
Hotshots interpreted the fire-transformed high desert landscape for the visitor by inserting a series of bright yellow, slightly anthropomorphic viewing stations through the path of the fire along twenty miles of gravel road towards the town of Crown King. These stations framed the landscape and provided a point of reference for the visitors, humanizing the scale of the vast landscape and the fire that transformed it. A detailed map to guide visitors along the road also accompanied the sculptural elements.
This piece honored the firefighter crews that fought the Gladiator fire (2012) and the Yarnell fire (2013).
Photographs by Victor Sidy, and Saskia Jorda.