Living With Fire: Adapting to a Changing World

Project Background

In the summer of 2018, one of the earliest mega wildland fires breached my hometown of Redding, CA destroying landscapes, homes and lives in a magnitude that has now become a norm. My mom watched the flames on the hillside. The fire was coming her way and she and her neighbors knew it was a matter of time that the sheriff’s office would evacuate her area. She was displaced for over a week, glued to the news, wondering if the winds would shift and blow the fire into the canyon flanking her backyard. The fire raged for over a month.

While Redding was still coping with the loss of homes and vegetation, the Camp Fire ravaged the nearby Paradise community, becoming the deadliest fire in the region. Then In 2020, while we all sheltered in place awaiting the COVID vaccine, the skies above my home in San Francisco turned an apocalyptic orange. The August Complex fire in Mendocino, the Glass Fire in Napa, and the CZU Lightning Complex fire in Santa Cruz enshrouded Northern California with smoke. Firefighters from other states and countries were deployed to help curtail the blazes, exhausted from the seemingly ceaseless blazes in this global phenomenon never seen in our modern era.

My dad was a firefighter long before these megafires entered our social consciousness, and I remember the toll fire season would take on him. Now fire season is no longer a thing. Megafires happen year round and in parts of the world that hadn’t experienced them before: Quebec, above the arctic circle in, Maui, and the list goes on. 

This project is an interdisciplinary body of work consisting of, video, sculptures made with burned wood, and jewelry talismans. The interdisciplinary approach is a design choice that acknowledges that we need multi-pronged solutions to address the seemingly insurmountable frequency of climate-induced megafires. By exploring this crisis through diverse art forms, I am taking a symbolic approach to tackling the issue.

A two-part culmination of research and community engagement.

1. A body of artwork.  I created a series of sculptures, videos, jewelry pieces and an installation structure drawing from my research and interviews on the topic of fire in our modern era.

2. A community art exhibit. I partnered with the Shasta County Arts Council to curate a juried show of art from the Northern California community. I designed this community-focused event to create an experience that connects artistic imagination so as to foster social resilience of those who have been scarred by fire. Here is where I test the theory that art can inspire us to bravely lean into difficult feelings and frictional spaces in order to reconnect, reimagine, and reignite a brave new way of rebuilding practices that address global issues and honor the earth.

What living with fire means to me: 

In July 2018, I was glued to my phone, feverishly refreshing Cal Fire’s real-time incident reports and awaiting updates from my mom about the rapidly advancing Carr Fire heading towards her west Redding neighborhood. I watched this disaster unfold from more than 200 miles away, powerless to do anything to help. She was evacuated for weeks, anxiously wondering if drifting embers would ignite the wooded canyon below her back yard.

Now, having witnessed the landscape of my childhood change from the 2018 Carr fire, and seeing the loss and devastation, I perceive how the scarring on the landscape is mirrored in the scarring of a community that witnessed the devastation in real time as they were forced to make split decisions on what to take with them when evacuation orders came.

This community scarring and community held trauma is what strikes me the most. We have a new split decision we face in the aftermath: do we hold onto memory through fear, or can the trauma be a catalyst for growth and reimagining. This is where art comes into play. Art connects communities together through contemplation and dialogue. Artworks have the power to activate a visceral reaction that impassions individuals to make meaningful and lasting change.

This project was built on a combination of experiences and research: an Artist in Residency at Whiskeytown Lake, interviews with community members, and research on ecology and fire science has helped me to better understand our collective experiences, challenges, and the opportunities that await for us to reimagine better.

A Reimagined Forest: Metals and Mixed Media Sculpture

Forests are changing. First from fire suppression and now from untamed wildland fires reclaiming their right to exist in the mix of climate change and drought. Climate disasters awaken the voyeur in us, igniting when seeing death and devastation. I’ve taken this notion of disaster tourism while being compelled to visit multiple burn scars from recent fires. While in these places, I’ve mourned the devastation and I’ve been awed by witnessing post-fire renewal. These sculptural artifacts made from  recycled copper utility wire burned wood are souvenirs to remember these events and depict various fire phenomena: smoldering root systems, fire-adapted plant species that rebound after a fire, and the human impact on nature. 

Split Decision (2022)- Charred Wood and Utility Wire

As I was walking through a portion of the Carr Fire burn scar with my mom,  gathering burned wood for sculptures, a portion of a tree stood out to her.  She called me over, "How about this one?"  It was perfect. My mom had to make a split decision as to what to take in her go bag as the fire rushed over the hills towards her neighborhood.  

Experimental Video

Short experimental videos were created by filming within the Carr Fire scar and conducting countless hours of interviews. The videos layer spoken text, textural images, and occasional whimsical animations accompanied by original music composed by my collaborator and composer Jacques Desjardins. Through video and music, we invoke a deep visceral connection to what it means to live with fire.

The video series takes us through the phases of shock & grief, contemplation & curiosity, and hope & reimagining so as to understand the various layers playing into wildland fires, land management, the mental and emotional health of our communities, and re-envisioning our path forward. With the shifting landscape of Shasta County as a backdrop, each chapter poses its own set of questions to shed light on what recovery and adaptation mean for them.

Wearable Totems - Forged in Fire

Wearable totems are jewelry sculptures inspired by nature’s resilience in the face of fire. While  walking through burn scars, I’ve observed what various manifestations of recovery look like. Conifers send shoots of clones in rings around their burnt core, called fairy rings. Spiders make their homes in the burnt remnants of redwoods. Blackberry brambles or ferns proliferate on the forest floor after the fire. These, and other natural processes in burnt forests are proof of resilience. 

Living With Fire: A Community Exhibit

This juried group show was created in partnership with the Shasta County Arts Council and exhibited across Redding art venues. This exhibit is my call for connection with my hometown community. It’s an artistic reminder that community unites us in difficult times. The Northern California artists in this exhibit were asked to share their interpretations of what it means to live with fire and adapt to a changing world. Their creative works depict literal and metaphorical explorations of lengthening fire seasons, loss, trauma, recovery, regeneration, fortitude, resilience, or regeneration in the context of living in a fire-prone and fire-adapted region. 

I invited viewers in this space to connect with the creative brilliance of these artists who see the world intensely and soulfully and to allow the work to ignite their own experiences of living with fire. The exhibit was designed to be a place of healing through community and a call for contemplation and conversation. 

News and PR from this event:

KRCR Story

Visit Redding Story

From my curator's statement:

“Allow this exhibit to be shared with friends and strangers. As you move through the space, connect with other attendees, talk about the work and what inspires you about it. Share your own experience with fire and refuel your hope and spark your imagination of how we might collectively live better with fire.”

Artistic Influences

Chicago, Judy .  "The function of beauty is to help us look at subjects that otherwise would be unbearable."  

Hooks, Bell. 1995. Art on My Mind. New York: The New Press.

Red Star, Wendy . A member of the Apsáalooke (Crow) Tribe. From her bio "Red Star works across disciplines to explore the intersections of Native American ideologies and colonialist structures, both historically and in contemporary society."

Influential works

Contested Eden, a collaboration between composer Gabriela Lena Frank and choreagrapher Molly Katzman, filmed on location by Swan Dive Media in CZU Lightning Complex Fire sites in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and music remotely-recorded by members of the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra. 

Flint is Family, a photo essay project by photographer Latoya Ruby Frasier documenting the lives of families affected by the ongoing Flint Michigan water crisis.