Jennifer Ladino, Erin James, and Teresa Cavazos Cohn are the Co-Founders of the Confluence Lab. Jennifer Ladino LAB CO-FOUNDER Professor, English Department University of Idaho jladino at uidaho.edu Erin James LAB CO-FOUNDER Professor, English Department University of Idaho ejames at uidaho.edu Teresa Cavazos Cohn LAB CO-FOUNDER Associate Professor, Department of Natural Resources & the Environment, University of New Hampshire; Climate Change Fellow, Harvard Divinity School teresa.cohn at unh.edu FELLOW IN RESIDENCE Environmental Humanities, University of Idaho, lhampton at uidaho.edu Leah Hampton's website Leah Hampton PRE-DOCTORAL FELLOW Doctoral Candidate , Environmental Science, University of Idaho Sasha Michelle White PROJECT AFFILIATE Regional Fire Specialist: Willamette Valley/North Cascades, OSU Extension Fire Program Kayla Bordelon GRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANT Doctoral Candidate, Environmental Science, University of Idaho Jack Kredell GRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANT Doctoral Candidate, College of Natural Resources, University of Idaho Phinehas Lampman Devin Becker PROJECT PARTNER Program Head Library, University of Idaho Devin Becker's website Ruby Fulton PROJECT PARTNER Composer and Musician Ruby Fulton's website Kristin Haltinner PROJECT PARTNER Associate Professor of Sociology, Director of the Academic Certificate in Diversity and Inclusion Jeffrey Hicke PROJECT PARTNER Professor of Geography, University of Idaho Stacy Isenbarger PROJECT PARTNER Mixed-media Artist Associate Professor of Art + Design , University of Idaho Stacy Isenbarger's website Benjamin James PROJECT PARTNER Clinical Assistant Professor, Film & TV studies, University of Idaho Leda Kobziar PROJECT PARTNER Associate Professor, Wildland Fire Science, Director, Master of Natural Resources Dilshani Sarathchandra PROJECT PARTNER Associate Professor of Sociology , University of Idaho Evan Williamson PROJECT PARTNER Digital Infrastructure Librarian, University of Idaho Evan Williamson's website RESEARCHER Creative Writer, Bellingham, WA North Bennett GRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANT MFA, Art + Design, University of Idaho Megan Davis website Megan Davis GRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANT MFA, English / Natural Resources, University of Idaho Kelsey Evans GRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANT MFA, English, University of Idaho Emily Holmes GRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANT MFA, English, University of Idaho Daniel Lurie GRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANT MFA, English, University of Idaho Isabel Marlens John Anderson AFFILIATED MEMBER Professor, Virtural Technology Lab Co-Manager, University of Idaho Bert Baumgaertner AFFILIATED MEMBER Associate Professor of Philosophy University of Idaho Kerri Clement AFFILIATED MEMBER Postdoctoral Fellow, History Department, University of Idaho Rob Ely AFFILIATED MEMBER Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistical Science, University of Idaho Matthew Grindal AFFILIATED MEMBER Assistant Professor, Department of Culture, Society & Justice, University of Idaho Leontina Hormel AFFILIATED MEMBER Professor of Sociology University of Idaho Graham Hubbs AFFILIATED MEMBER Associate Professor of Philosophy, Chair of Politics and Philosophy, University of Idaho Ryan S. Lincoln AFFILIATED MEMBER Assistant Clinical Professor of Law, University of Idaho Markie McBrayer AFFILIATED MEMBER Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Idaho Ryanne Pilgeram AFFILIATED MEMBER Professor of Sociology, University of Idaho Aleta Quinn AFFILIATED MEMBER Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Idaho David Roon AFFILIATED MEMBER Clinical Assistant Professor of Ecology and Conservation Biology, University of Idaho Scott Slovic AFFILIATED MEMBER University Distinguished Professor of Environmental Humanities, University of Idaho Rochelle Smith AFFILIATED MEMBER Reference & Instruction Librarian, University of Idaho Alexandra Teague AFFILIATED MEMBER Associate Chair, Professor of English, Co-Director of Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies, University of Idaho Alexandra Teague's website Lee Vierling AFFILIATED MEMBER University Distinguished Professor, Director of the Environmental Science Program and Department Head, Natural Resources and Society, University of Idaho

Fire Humanities Theory and Practice Establishing a new interdisciplinary field of study Initially funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities Contributors Include: Jenn Ladino and Erin James (editors) Karin Bolender Teresa Cavazos Cohn Nigel Clark Ashley Cordes Nick Earhart Gretel Evans Greg Garrard Jessica Horton Mica Jorgenson Gavin Kroeber Stephanie LeMenager David Lewis Brett Milligan Miriam Morrill Jesse Oak Taylor Lenya Quinn-Davidson Andreas Rutkauskas Emily Schlickman Jennie Sekanics Bruno Seraphim and Chook Chook Hillman Sasha Michelle White Fire Humanities is a book project, an interdisciplinary and multi-institutional collaboration, and the name of an emerging field of study. Growing out of collaborative projects in the Confluence Lab—most recently, a grant funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities , awarded in August of 2024 and defunded in April of 2025—the fire humanities takes as a foundational premise that learning to live well with more fire is not just a matter of educating people about preparedness or conducting more fuels reduction projects. We need to understand fire’s human dimensions. While fire science draws on quantitative data analysis, digital modeling, and remote sensing to predict fire behavior and ecological effects, the fire humanities add qualitative methods to fire research by foregrounding the dynamic historical, cultural, and aesthetic relationships humans have with fire. In an essay for the Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network , Sasha Michelle White coined the phrase “fire humanities” and explained that “reckoning with landscape fire means reckoning with cultural fuels as well as ecological ones. Effective fire adaptation will require that the cultural ‘fuel loads’—the stories, values, beliefs—and ‘fuel ladders’—the social networks, partnerships, and trust or lack thereof—that have contributed to the current wildfire crisis be examined, and that new ‘loads’ and ‘ladders,’ in which fire is recast as an ally and progenitor of community strength, be created.” Fire Humanities as a book project aims to both expose and shift the dominant paradigm that has fomented the current wildfire crisis, including the demonization of fire, the criminalization of Indigenous fire practices, and the preeminence of fire-phobic settler cultural values. We take several sets of questions to heart. The first set is about how humanities and arts practitioners can make the cultural dimensions of fire more legible, both exposing unhelpful representations and creating or amplifying better ones. We ask: How can the humanities and arts make legible the cultural dimensions of fire? How can humanities scholarship expose and challenge the violence(s)—historical and ongoing—related to fire? What narrative and aesthetic forms might be harnessed, amplified, or created to support more nuanced understandings of landscape fire, whether wild, prescribed, or cultural? The second set of questions demonstrates a commitment to being self-reflexive about our own disciplines and methodologies in the process. With that in mind, we ask: How does fire challenge the methodologies of humanities scholarship? What is humanities knowledge in a world increasingly understood as in crisis? How are our methodologies useful, and how do they need to change? How can humanist scholarship avoid re-inscribing dominant paradigms of fire, and how can western-trained and Indigenous scholars collaborate meaningfully? How might humanities knowledge and methods be enhanced by learning from practitioners who specialize in applied research and fieldwork, including “boots on the ground” fire scientists and fire practitioners? Fire Humanities project team members have shared our work-in-progress at the 2025 ASLE Conference, Penn State’s “Heat and the Humanities ” event and, most recently, a public panel discussion and conversation at the Burke Museum, in Seattle. We hope the book will be in print in 2027 and that this emerging field will continue to build momentum.

projects LAB who we are The Confluence Lab engages in creative interdisciplinary research projects that bring together scholars in the arts, humanities, and sciences, together with community members, to engage in environmental issues impacting rural communities. Scan here to donate! Fire Humanities a book of original essays that launches an emergent interdisciplinary field Narrative Science training in narrative and emotional literacy for science practitioners Fire Lines: A Sto ries of Fire project nonfiction essay combining archives and original writing Stories of Fire: Pacifi c Northwest Cli mate Atlas community-sourced project that hopes to reimagine our shared wildfire story and future fire resilience Stories of Fire: Integrative STEM Learning through Participatory Narratives interdisciplinary project that explores personal narratives of wildland fire and informal STEM learning in rural Idaho Storying Extinction: Responding to the Loss of North Idaho’s Mountain Caribou deep map consisting of oral histories, trail camera footage, nonfiction essays, and historical documents Our Changing Climate: Finding Common Ground through Climate Fiction conversations about climate change in four Idaho communities Internship Program professional development opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students Artists-In-Fire residency an immersive residency for artists and writers Stories of Fire Online Exhibition Series visual artwork highlighting the manifold ways artists and designers are marking, mapping, and engaging with wildfire Where there is Smoke... crowd-sourced digital map that documents experiences of wildfire smoke in the Pacific Northwest and further afield Wilderness Suite: Music, Video, & Rephotography using science and art to explore the Frank Church River of No Return WIlderness Change in Frank Church Wilderness: Collaborative Rephotography using photographs and oral histories to understand change in the wilderness Nature and Nuance of Climate Change Perceptions understanding climate change perceptions and skepticism in Idaho, Washington, and Oregon

AIF crew 2024 Adam Huggins Galiano Island, BC, Canada Adam Huggins is an artist, podcaster, practitioner of ecological restoration, teacher, and naturalist living in the Salish Sea of southwestern British Columbia, on Galiano Island - the unceded lands and waters of Hul’qumi’num speaking people. As an environmental professional, he implements watershed-scale ecological restoration projects for the Galiano Conservancy Association and teaches a class in the Restoration of Natural Systems program at the University of Victoria. As a storyteller and musician, he produces and co-hosts the Future Ecologies podcast, which is currently wrapping up a 5th season of long-form audio pieces at the intersection of the human and more-than-human worlds. Out of the Green, Into the Black: A Journey into Cultural Fire Adam Huggins Cover art by Ale Silva for episode 6.9 of the Future Ecologies podcast I stand on the edge of the narrow, one-lane road, staring down a steep, brush-filled slope. Harsh sunlight filters down through the canopy of Douglas-fir, arbutus, and black oak, illuminating a dense tangle of hazel, bay, and huckleberry in the understory. I’m already sweating under the weight of my pack in my borrowed NOMEX clothing, shifting back and forth trying to break in a very expensive and uncomfortable new pair of thick-soled leather boots. “What’s your burn experience like?” asks the nearest crew member on the fire line. “None” I say. “This is my first time.” He nods and murmurs a polite response. I pause for a moment, adjusting my hardhat, and then venture, “I am amazed at how steep this site is, and how much material is still on the ground.” He grins. “Yeah, you’re like whoa, there’s a lot of fuels on the ground, and it’s steep.” “That’s my impression,” I say, eyeing the precipitous slope with mounting trepidation and thinking, ‘are we actually going to attempt to burn this today?’ “Yep.” He laughs, a twinkle in his eye. “Welcome to the Klamath!” CFMC Burn block for September 26, 2025, featuring thick underbrush on a very steep slope - - - This past September, I returned to the northwest corner of California for the first time in nearly a decade. I followed the Klamath River, liberated from the four dams that until recently blocked the passage of its once-famed salmon runs, from the arid steppe of southern Oregon down to the rugged coastal forests of Yurok territory. For three days, I would be a guest of the Yurok-led Cultural Fire Management Council, or CFMC (https://www.culturalfire.org/ ) as a representative of the Artists-In-Fire program, an artists residency created by the Confluence Lab at the University of Idaho (https://www.theconfluencelab.org/artists-in-fire-residency ). Months of wading through the online classes and field exercises required to become a ‘Wildland Firefighter Type II’ had brought me at last to that one-lane road perched narrowly above the river below. My goal: take part in a cultural burn, and document the experience for the Future Ecologies podcast (https://www.futureecologies.net/listen/fe-6-9-on-fire-out-of-the-green-into-the-black ). With a pulaski in one hand and a microphone in the other, I gathered my senses and steeled myself for the trial by fire to come. - - - A short distance away, the assembled crew of 30 awaits the lighting of the test fire. It’s an eclectic mix of Yurok elders, youth, and settlers, goofing around and relishing a bit of down time between the prep work and the burn itself. A hush falls over the group as Rick O’Rourke steps forward, holding a long bundle of aromatic silvery-green wormwood. We’re about to burn 2 acres of Rick’s family land. He lights the bundle and then brings it gently to the ground, igniting the dry oak leaves and fir needles that blanket the soil, murmuring a prayer: “Creator, we’re here to put fire on the ground in a good way. Please look after all of our people who are here to do your service. Help them heal our land, heal our people, bring back our animals, create balance. It’s an honour.” He takes a deep breath as the leaves begin to crackle and hiss, then turns around to face the crew. “It’s receptive!” A moment passes, and then one of the young Yurok crew members arches his back and lets loose a feral yelp. Soon, other members of the crew pitch in, releasing a chorus of fierce howls, guttural cries, and excited yips. As the collective catharsis comes to an end, we find our respective squad members and make our way down the seemingly near-vertical lines cut through the duff to give a boundary to the fire. The burn has begun. Rick O’Rourke offers a prayer as he lights the test fire on his family’s land - - - I have been periodically interviewing people involved in prescribed fire since 2018, and have had a keen interest in the topic since at least 2013. That was the year I lived on the Klamath, just upriver in Karuk territory, and was first exposed to the practice by my neighbors on Butler Flat after nervously witnessing the Orleans Complex fire consume over 20,000 acres, including a chunk of the remote rural town I was living in. But none of these conversations and experiences prepared me for the exhilaration of actually participating in a prescribed burn myself. Smoke over the Klamath River from the Orleans Complex Fire in July of 2013 That first day, the fuels are indeed receptive. As the flames quickly spread, the crew kicks into action, manning water lines and drip torches. I’m forced to drop my microphone as a hose is shoved into my hand, and I’m immediately in the thick of it, spraying water on a “catface” at the base of a venerable black oak, preventing the fire from entering the wound and harming the tree. A sign of my inexperience, black smoke kicks back into my face, clogging all of my senses at once and instantly demonstrating why firefighters often say “eating smoke” instead of “breathing smoke.” I’m forced into a hasty retreat, and a helping hand steps in to take my hose. On this crew, there’s always a teammate ready to step in when you can’t take the heat. After a few hot minutes, the fire settles into a gentle backing burn, creepingly slowly downhill in graceful arcs. Members of the firing team shuffle back and forth just below the trail of flame, mostly watching with satisfaction as it burns merrily away. Occasionally, they offer encouragement in the form of small dots of incandescent fuel from their drip torches. Along the top and sides of the burn, members of the holding team make sure the fire stays within the boundary, immediately snuffing out the few embers that manage to float across the fire line. I watch the flames consume a kinky hazelnut shrub, the leaves slowly curling and the bark blistering under the low-intensity fire. After the burn, as we move through the ashy landscape to wet down any remaining hot spots, Rick will explain that the blistering tells him they generated just the right intensity of fire to ensure that the hazel will resprout with long, straight shoots - perfect for weaving the baskets that the Yurok people are famous for. Beautiful, gentle backing fire consumes understory fuels but leaves trees unharmed - - - The reader may wonder, as I did, what distinguishes ‘cultural fire’ from ‘prescribed fire.’ In reality, they share many characteristics, but the key difference is that prescribed fire is typically applied by settler authorities and organizations to reduce fuel loads and achieve ecological objectives, while cultural fire is applied by Indigenous peoples to sustain a wide variety of cultural values, from improving habitat for game to restoring traditional oak prairies. Ideally, cultural fire and prescribed fire can be applied in concert at a landscape scale, allowing communities at the wildland-urban interface (or the ‘WUI’) to reduce the mounting risk of wildfires, improve the health and productivity of ecosystems, and uphold long-held cultural values. On the second day, as we shepherd the fire through the understory of a black oak woodland, I corner Annelia Norris with my microphone. She’s a Yurok basketweaver, and as we sit underneath a hazel bush, hypnotized by the fire, she tells me, “There are a lot more weavers coming along and coming up. And so there's a need for it, like we need to take care of our materials.” In reality, it takes a healthy cultural landscape to produce a single basket. Vigorous hazelnut shoots are joined by spruce root, maidenhair fern, and even porcupine quills to create a wide variety of functional pieces of art, from the open-weave baskets that cradle Yurok babies to the watertight baskets used for leaching tannins from acorns. She continues, “Our lands have seen trauma. Our people have seen trauma. So when you think about fire, it's cleansing, you know? It cleanses the land. And so when we're talking about healing this is very healing for us.” Beaked hazelnut (Corylus cornuta californica); inset shows blistering of bark at base of plant Later, I will speak with Yurok Elders who will reference the challenges that they and their ancestors faced through generations of fire suppression, when keeping traditional fire practices alive meant risking imprisonment or even death at the hands of agents of the Californian government. Today, their children are leading the way in restoring healing fire to their territory, and teaching anyone willing to lend a hand how to do so safely and effectively. Annelia concludes, “We've normalized the cultural burning. Like, we've really taken leadership in asserting ourselves and our culture and our land management. You know, it just started catching fire.” Annelia Norris stands on the fire line, separating the unburned ‘green’ from the ashy ‘black’ - - - At the end of three days, we had applied cultural fire to over 30 acres - an impressive feat. We would burn through the night into the early hours of the morning, the flames and starlight merging into conflagrations of stunning beauty. On the morning I was scheduled to leave, as an early fall deluge quenched the landscape, I woke up completely exhausted, with blistered feet and chapped hands, wishing that there had been time for just one more burn. As Rick had told me the day before, “Now you’re addicted and afflicted!” As I returned to my home on Galiano Island in the Salish Sea of western Canada, I reflected on just how similar the ecosystems I work in as a professional biologist are to those I helped to burn in California. We too enjoy a dense green canopy of Douglas-fir, arbutus, and scattered oak, with an understory of huckleberries, blackberries, and the occasional hazel. Our community also faces unprecedented fuel loads and an elevated risk of wildfire due to generations of fire suppression and a spiralling climate crisis. This land shares a long evolutionary history with fire and a rich cultural legacy of Coast Salish peoples burning to maintain camas prairies, oak woodlands, and village sites. Why then, are the Yurok and Karuk restoring fire to thousands of acres of their territories, while we wring our hands with worry at each escalating wildfire season, “eating” smoke as a staple of our diet for months during the summer drought? Why had I needed to travel south of the border for the opportunity to take the first steps in my fire journey? There are a variety of answers to these questions, manifesting as a series of cultural, ecological, and regulatory hurdles which must be approached to bring good fire back to small rural communities like mine. But my experience in Yurok territory showed me that these hurdles are not so high as they may seem. The CFMC started out 10 years ago as a volunteer effort by a rag-tag group of Knowledge Holders cobbling resources together, and now they’re a well-oiled professional unit employing dozens of community members. Over the winter, Joe Gilchrist of the Interior Salish Firekeepers made a tour of coastal British Columbia, stopping on Galiano Island to speak with me, my colleagues, and Indigenous community members. We stood together overlooking the Salish Sea, sharing stories and talking about bringing good fire home to the Salish Sea. Surveying the steep, brushy slope below, he looked at us and said, “Oh yes. You could definitely burn this.” After my time on the Klamath, I now knew it was possible. And I felt that, in good time, we would return fire to this place. As Annelia told me before I left, “This is our purpose. This is why we're here, and this is what we need to be doing.” The author, helping to extinguish the last remaining embers after the fire passes through QR Code for episode 6.9 of the Future Ecologies podcast Chat back to AIF residency Chat

featured artist Andreas Rutkauskas Kelowna, British Columbia Andreas Rutkauskas has been making photographs of landscapes for over twenty years, six of which have been dedicated to the aftermath and regeneration following wildfire. His past projects have focused on land that has been transformed through the implementation of a range of technologies, including surveillance along the Canada/U.S. border and cycles of industrialization and deindustrialization in Canada’s oil patch. He was the inaugural artist-in-residence at the Grantham Foundation for the Arts and the Environment (2020), a research fellow with the Canadian Photography Institute (2018), and was a finalist for the Gabriele Basilico International Prize in Architecture and Landscape (2016). His work is held in private and public collections, including the Canadian War Museum, and the Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery. Andreas currently teaches photography at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus, on unceded Syilx territory. featured artwork McDougall Creek Fire, from the series Silent Witnesses Inkjet print on Baryta, mounted on dibond 40x50” 2023 Nk’Mip Fire, from the series Silent Witnesses Inkjet print on Baryta, mounted on dibond 30" x 40” 2023 Underdown Creek Fire, from the series Silent Witnesses Inkjet print on Baryta, mounted on dibond 40x30” 2023 McDougall Creek Fire, from the series Silent Witnesses Inkjet print on Baryta, mounted on dibond 40x50” 2023 responding to SIGHTLINES The Okanagan Valley, where I have resided since 2016, is an incredibly diverse ecoregion, including the forests typically associated with the PNW and valley bottoms of open Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir forest interspersed with shrub-steppe. My six years of research into fire began with a simple question: what does the aftermath of a wildfire look like? Originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba and having resided in Montréal for twelve years, fire on the land was a new and fascinating phenomenon to me as an artist using photography. I continue to make new discoveries and to be fascinated by fire’s power to sculpt the land. Silent Witnesses marks a paradigm shift in my ongoing research into the aftermath and regeneration following wildfire. Whereas my earlier images of wildfire focused specifically on optimistic representations of renewal within fire-adapted ecosystems, my approach since May 2023 has relied on outdoor strobes and a digital medium format camera system to highlight individual trees or selected members of a community. My goal is to create contrast between what has been lost, what has changed and what is returning, and to produce these contrasts within a single frame. While working on this project in the Okanagan Valley, the city I currently call home went through a massive firestorm. My most recent images depict literal sightlines that have opened up in the wake of the McDougall Creek wildfire. A once scruffy Douglas fir and lodgepole pine ridge crest to the west of the city now provides abundant views and a striking example of how close this fire, which claimed nearly 200 homes, came to engulfing thousands more properties. more from Andreas' perspective On August 17, 2023 the McDougall Creek wildfire tore through communities along the Western shore of Okanagan Lake, including the City of West Kelowna. Andreas watched its progress from the other side of the lake. In the days following the firestorm, thick smoke clouded the valley. People were unable to assess the damage or determine an accurate fire perimeter and tourism was curtailed in the Central Okanagan. In 2003, the Okanagan Mountain Park fire burned over two hundred homes on the outskirts of the City of Kelowna. As the land continues to undergo transformation, Andreas documents the sightlines between this earlier fire and the 2023 firestorm. From thousands of exposures, Andreas narrowed down selections of his Silent Witnesses series to just under one hundred images. Postcard-sized test prints grow to a larger scale as he examines critical focus in preparation for the production of full-sized gallery prints. Andreas' work on view in his exhibition Éveil at the Musée regional de Rimouski, Québec. Oct. 6, 2023 – Feb. 4, 2024. Chat back to exhibition Chat

AIF crew 2024 Rachel Richardson Berkeley, CA Rachel Richardson is the author of three books of poetry, SMOTHER (forthcoming from W. W. Norton & Co. in 2025), and Hundred-Year Wave (2016) and Copperhead (2011), both selections in the Carnegie Mellon Poetry Series. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and Wallace Stegner Program at Stanford University. Her poetry and prose appear in The New York Times Magazine, Lit Hub, Yale Review, APR, Kenyon Review Online, at the Poetry Foundation, on The Slowdown, and elsewhere. Rachel received an MFA in Poetry from the University of Michigan, an MA in Folklore from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a BA in English from Dartmouth College. Rachel is the Co-Founder of Left Margin LIT , a literary arts center in Berkeley, California, and serves on the board of the Bay Area Book Festival . She is currently Distinguished Visiting Writer in the MFA program at St. Mary's College of California. TREX involvement More on her story in Fall 2024... To Rachel, this residency offers her the chance to immerse herself in the landscape where she lives, to learn more deeply about its ecology and the risks it faces. As an artist, she loves the framing of the residency as being "in fire." She is excited for the chance to consider a "residency" as an immersion in experience rather than a retreat from it. New experience always generates new work for her, and learning about fire in particular is deeply relevant to the delicate ecosystem in which she lives, so it will help her think about human communities in relation to our place. Further, since the training is focused on sustainability, she hope this residency furthers her understanding of engaged solutions and community-building that can grow out of our climate crisis. Chat back to AIF residency Chat

Human & Ecological Change in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness: A Collaborative Rephotography Project Teresa Cavazos Cohn ... ... A team of faculty and students, led by Dr. Teresa Cavazos Cohn (Natural Resources and Society), is using rephotography methods to examine social and ecological change in this wilderness setting. In addition to compiling historical-current photograph pairs, researchers will conduct semi-structured interviews with a variety of stakeholders in order to better understand interpretations of change, which may differ between cultural groups. The Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness is an ideal location for repeat photography. First, many areas have been photographed by residents, outfitters, and recreationists over the past century and pre- and post- wilderness designation impacted use in ways that are visible on the landscape. Second, vegetation in some areas have dramatically changed due to an increase of forest fire as well as invasive species such as cheat grass (Bromus tectorum). We believe photo sets are both visually compelling (and of interest to the general public) as well as informative for broader discussions of change in the Frank Church-River of No Return. Photographs will be housed in the U of I digital photo archives. This project is funded by the DeVlieg Foundation. Next

featured artists Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes: Overlook Field School Eugene, OR The Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes (FIPL) is an internationally recognized center for research-based design and design as research, focused on the role of place in cultural sustainability, and grounded in the arts and humanities. Guided by a team of scholars, students use fieldwork and art methods to investigate the ongoing stewardship of landscapes and culture. featured artwork RECOVERY Overlook Field School 2021 Highlights of this five week project can be reviewed in this digital booklet . featuring works by: William Booner, Hanna Chapin, Celia Hensey, Abby Pierce, Kennedy Rauh, Audrey Rycewizc, Massayo Simon, Ian Vierck, Nancy Silver & David Buckly Borden responding to Ground Truths In the western United States, wildfires are becoming bigger, hotter, and more frequent due to the effects of climate change. During the summer of 2021, as smoke from western fires stretched across the country, the Oregon-based session of the Overlook Field School explored the theme of “Recovery” as it relates to wildfire burns. Analogous to resilience, restoration, and regeneration, recovery is a return to some previous state - perhaps a new normal - and ever more complicated when applied to a medium as dynamic as landscape in the time of rapid climate change. Over the course of five weeks, we visited post-fire sites in the Willamette National Forest, most of which occurred within the last 30 years. The projects shared in the Recovery booklet are the outcome of these forest explorations and creative interactions led by educator, Michael Geffel, and artist-in-residence, David Buckley Borden. We were also strongly influenced by concurrent environmental events: a record heat wave which coincided with the first day of the field school, and the explosion of wildfires as we entered our final design phase. Despite the prevailing narrative of catastrophe and destruction, the recovery we observed was incredibly inspirational. The Field School culminated in a public exhibition of temporary landscape installations that centered the dynamism of post-fire landscapes and what they can teach us about resiliency, as we aspired to communicate the beneficial impacts of fire in the face of increasingly longer fire seasons. more from FIPL's projects Despite the prevailing narrative of catastrophe and destruction, the recovery observed by the group was inspiring. We aspired to communicate these experiences through landscape installations in order to express as well as document the beneficial impacts of fire, as we are experiencing increasingly longer fire seasons. The work draws extensively from field visits to post-fire sites within the Willamette National Forest. We were also strongly influenced by concurrent environmental events: a record heat wave and the explosion of wildfires bookended the Field School. Chat back to exhibition Chat

featured artist Allison McClay Portland, OR Allison McClay is a painter, illustrator and mural artist from Portland, Oregon. Her paintings examine historical figures and landscapes through a magical realism filter, creating rich, detailed images that tell a fragment of a story and invite a close look. featured artwork "Olallie Burns" Acrylic on Wood, 20"x16" 2022 "Sucia Saves Us" Acrylic on Wood, 20"x16" 2022 responding to SIGHTLINES These two pieces are part of a new series I am working on that explores the experiences children have with life in a world that is inundated with crisis and climate disaster. In these pieces, the subjects are aware of the fiery landscapes, and though their reactions are not clear, they are definitely not alarmed. I am interested in how they navigate being children within this and what a healthy relationship to destruction and to existential doom could look like. Both of these paintings are inspired by real places that have been affected by fires: Olallie Lake is in Oregon near Mount Jefferson and those burned forests are very real; Sucia Island is in the San Juan Islands in Washington and the fire in the distance is an interpretation of real wildfires that have become more and more common in the area. more from Allison's perspective View of Oneonta Gorge in the Columbia River Gorge area, where there was a massive fire in 2017. Allison's been hiking there her entire life, though many trails are still closed due to damage. View of Olallie Butte, part of the Warm Springs Reservation, in the Jefferson Wilderness. Allison isn't sure when this burn happened, as there seem to be fires in the area often. Row boating in Olallie Lake. My family has been camping around here for the past decade or so, since our previous favorite spot near Mt. Adams was destroyed by fire. View toward the crater of Mt. St. Helens. 43 years after the eruption, signs of life are everywhere. Mountain goat fur caught on a bush blows in the wind. Chat back to exhibition Chat

Stories of Fire: online exhibition series spring 2023 As part of our Pacific Northwest Stories of Fire Atlas Project , working with the University of Idaho's Prichard Art Gallery , we showcased works by visual artists and designers in the online exhibition series, Stories of Fire . These exhibitions will highlight the manifold ways artists and designers are marking, mapping, engaging and articulating personal and community experiences of wildfire in the region. Organized into three parts, GROUND TRUTHS (Spring 2023), FUEL LOADING (Fall 2023) and SIGHTLINES (Winter 2024), each exhibition is loosely framed by a particular disciplinary lens— cartography, fire management and urban planning—and the range of ways artists express and explore parallel concerns. fall 2023 winter 2024 Stories of Fire Participating Artists Laura Ahola-Young Jean Arnold Anne Acker-Mathieu Jackie Barry David Paul Bayles & Frederick J Swanson Karin Bolender / Rural Alchemy Workshop Lisa Cristinzo Megan Davis Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes: Overlook Field School Margo Geddes Kelsey Grafton Megan Hatch Alice, Maggie & Rob Keffe Katie Kehoe Kate Lund Amiko Matsu + Brad Monsma aj miccio Miriam H Morrill Julie Mortimer Allison McClay Meredith Ojala Eric Ondina Oregon Episcopal School & Sophia Hatzikos Asante Riverwind Andreas Rutkauskas Gerard Sarnat Martina Shenal Enid Smith Becker Sonia Sobrino Ralston Siri Stensberg Liz Toohey-Wiese Mary Vanek Smith Doug Tolman & Alec Bang Justin Webb Sasha Michelle White Suze Woolf exhibitions presented in collaboration of: and made possible by the generous support of: Next

featured artist Margo Geddes Missoula, MT Margo Geddes is an artist in Missoula, MT. Her photographic practice revolves around the intersections between humans and the natural world. From the cultivated landscape of the garden to the effects of people on wild spaces and vice versa, her images look to surface these complex relationships. She holds an MFA in Photography from the University of Oregon and an MA in Museum Studies from Johns Hopkins University. She has shown her work both nationally and internationally. featured artwork "Standing Dead" silver gelatin print, 10in x10in, 2022 "Heart Boulder" silver gelatin print, 10in x10in, 2022 "Black Ground" silver gelatin print, 10in x10in, 2022 responding to Ground Truths Visiting landscapes I have been close to for over a decade in the Bitterroot Mountains, that have been subject to wildfire and establishing a new relationship with the changed space, has been not only a mourning but a discovery, a truth about the ground, the landscape, and it's relationship with impermanence. Fire season has become ubiquitous during the summer months in Montana and places that I have spent a good deal of time hiking, wandering, knowing, have eventually burned. Finding new landscapes in the wreckage left behind has been a form of healing. In early spring of 2020, while driving forest roads in Bitterroot National Forest, I noticed the granitic boulders, previously hidden in the thick forest, that were starkly strewn across the landscape. I began photographing them to explore this new and swiftly changing landscape: as fireweed takes hold and the forest begins to regenerate they will soon be hidden again. The scope of my work has grown to include a larger view of the scarred landscape as a whole, the trees, the revealed topography, the process of regeneration. more from Margo's perspective A view of Granite Pass, where Margo shot some of the images featured in Ground Truths. Granite Pass burned in the summer of 2021. This was shot July 4, 2022. In it one can see the burned slopes and the forest road winding its way through. Chat back to exhibition Chat

featured artist Megan Hatch Portland, OR Megan Hatch is a queer, multidisciplinary artist living in Portland, OR. She uses art-making to explore the world around and inside of her, and also to share the stories of those journeys. She does this because she knows, deep down, that art is essential to our collective thriving: it’s how we’re going to find our way. You can find more of her work here . featured artwork "the way isn't clear - and yet here we are" archival pigment print, 27in x 10in, 2022 "almost there - losing ground" archival pigment print, 10in x 27in, 2022 "leaning in - falling down" archival pigment print, 10in x 27in, 2022 responding to Ground Truths The earth is burning, and not in a Paris sort of way. We’re told to lean in, only to find ourselves constantly leaning down to pick up the pieces. Losing ground, falling down….We fall in, call in, reach out and sometimes shout with joy. We mend the cracks with the gold we have, and that we are, so we can carry water and each other. I started this work in 2020, which had the worst fire season in Oregon to date. That year also marked the beginning of the COVID pandemic, and George Floyd died at the hands of police. The experience of each of these tragedies was inextricably linked. So much felt broken. So much still does. In this series, the photographs are bound together by a thin golden line as if by kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold. They become a series of vessels to hold our hurt and our hope. There is healing to be found in holding multiple truths in our awareness at the same time, in acknowledging the fullness of the moment, and of each other. By doing so, we get to practice wholeness. There is no way to where we want to go without practice. This is my ground truth… The photographs in this series were made on land across the street from where I live in Portland, OR. Once a landfill, it is now an essential urban greenway for wildlife. It has been burned by wildfire twice in the past three years. more of Megan's perspective Ground truth 2: Watching the smoke roll across the land. This photo was taken during the 2020 Oregon fire season, which was one of the worst to date. Ground truth 1: Nearly all of the photos from the series "yes | and" were made on land that is home to Dharma Rain Zen Center . This area was originally a landfill. It is now an essential urban greenway for wildlife. Megan walks there almost every day. Ground truth 3: The land here gets parched every summer now. Brush fires can and do start easily. Living in an area of town with sparse tree cover exacerbates this, among many other detrimental impacts . This year Megan's family is adding several trees and shrubs along the street by their house. They are also amending the soil with biochar, which both increases soil health and sequesters carbon. Chat back to exhibition Chat