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- members | 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
- Sightlines Spotlight: Andreas Rutkauskas | Confluence Lab
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
- Sightlines Spotlight: Emily Schlickman + Brett Milligan | Confluence Lab
Emily Schlickman Davis, CA Brett Milligan Davis, CA featured artists Emily Schlickman is an Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Design at the University of California, Davis, whose research explores design techniques for accelerated climate change. Schlickman received a BA from Washington University in St. Louis and an MLA from Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Brett Milligan is an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Design at the University of California, Davis. There he is the director of the Metamorphic Landscapes Lab, dedicated to prototyping landscape-based adaptations to conditions of accelerated climatic and environmental change, through extensive fieldwork and transdisciplinary design research. Much of his work is based in California, undoing and reworking colonial legacies of land reclamation, water infrastructure, flood control, and fire suppression. Emily and Brett recently published Design by Fire: Resistance, Co-Creation and Retreat in the Pyrocene. featured artwork Pyro Postcard Series help pick a new mascot Interested in exploring other creatures to to rival Smokey Bear's impact on America's take on fire suppression, Emily & Brett are surveying other options. Cast your vote for a mascot (many featured in the Pyro Postcard series) fitting of our pyro future on their website . responding to SIGHTLINES While we are based in Northern California and most of our work centers on the Sierra Nevada and Coastal Ranges, the questions and considerations we pose transcend political and geographic boundaries, as many places are facing similar wildfire conditions. Pyro Postcards is part of a larger futuring project about wildfire. The project invites collective speculation on the transformative nature of fire and the ways it can change the landscapes of the American West. For one certainty we have is that our fire-prone landscapes will be different from what they are today, and we don’t know exactly what they will become. But, by looking at a few horizons, we can imagine a multitude of futures. In presenting Pyro Postcards , we hope participants can feel their way into possible fiery futures and our potential role in making them. Some are bleak. Some are exciting. Some are just fucking weird and stick in your mind. more from their perspective Image of a prescribed burn Brett helped with to try to restore native grassland and Oak Woodland habitat on the UC McLaughlin Natural Reserve. He likes to assist with intentional burns where and when he can. Yolo County recently launched a prescribed burn association (PBA), a community-based network focused on educating and training residents about intentional fire practices. This is an image of their first burn just north of Capay, California. Emily likes to spend time in burn scars to observe how landscapes respond to wildfire events. This is an ash sample that she collected from the footprint of the LNU Lightning Complex Fires. above: LNU Berryessa left: Quail Ridge Reserve These images are part of photographic documentation Brett takes of landscapes to see how they change and regenerate after wildlife. These locations feature chaparral habitats in California after burning in LNU complex fire in 2020. This is an image of an indigenous-led cooperative burn in Cobb, California. Emily is part of TERA’s on-call ecocultural fire crew for the 2023-2024 season. This is a sample of design work by landscape architecture students Madison Main, Yining Li, Xinyi Gao for the Field Guide to Transformation studio Brett recently taught. In this studio students worked together to re-envision how the UC McLaughlin reserve might become a place for more proactive fire research, offer hands-on experiential learning for students, and foster greater ties to surrounding communities. Chat back to exhibition Chat
- Artist Spotlight: Kate Lund | Confluence Lab
featured artist featured artist Kate Lund Silverton, ID Kate Lund is originally from the small town of Challis, located in Central Idaho. She received a BFA from Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington and earned an MFA in Studio Art from the University of Montana. During her time as a student, Kate spent eight summers working as a wildland firefighter with the Forest Service. Through this job she spent a great deal of time immersed in the outdoors and traveling through obscure towns in the rural western United States. Today, Kate does not spend her summers on the fireline, but she still finds inspiration in the outdoors be it gardening, swimming, or hiking. Kate is currently an artist and teacher; she teaches high school and college level art classes at Wallace Jr/Sr High School. Kate exhibits her work locally and regionally. In 2018 she was part of a three person exhibition, Three Generations, at the SFCC Fine Art Gallery. In November of 2019, Kate held a solo exhibition at the Cawein Gallery at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon. featured artwork in Ground Truths "Are You Sure We are Going the Right Way?" cattle marker and graphite on panel, 3ft x 4ft, 2016 "Downdraft" Installation View left: "Downdraft," graphite and cattle marker on paper, right: "Build Up," 2016 "Downdraft" 5ft x 23ft, graphite and cattle marker on paper "Downdraft" detail "Microburst" wire fencing, rip-stop nylon, flannel, deer fencing, tent poles, 9ft x 9ft x4ft, 2016 photo credit: Sarah Moore "Microburst" (detail) photo credit: Sarah Moore responding to Ground Truths I believe the general public has a romanticized idea of what wildland firefighters actually do, thinking that people (firefighters) can always overcome the challenges and complexities that fire brings. There are many instances that arise such as terrain, weather, and fuel loading that make it impossible to stop a fire even if it is with a helicopter or a retardant drop from the biggest air tanker there is. My ground truth is that as a firefighter I often felt conflicted: conflicted about whether or not I could actually handle the job, conflicted about whether we were helping or harming the environment, conflicted about when to feel distressed, and conflicted about when to take a deep breath and enjoy the beauty of the landscape. The artworks in this exhibition share this internal and external turmoil. The body of work featured in Ground Truths is rooted in appreciation for the quietude within the landscape interrupted by a sense of urgency and distress, discovered after spending eight summers as a wildland firefighter. I used firefighting to fuel my artistic practice by collecting images, objects, and sensations over the course of each summer in the landscape. The renderings, gestural drawings, and sculptural work are the result of allowing my studio process to mimic my analytical decision making and sensory observation as a wildland firefighter. In Microburst , I gathered the expired and cast-off tents and outdoor equipment of firefighting and created a form that is reminiscent of the way wind moves during a microburst weather event—short, sharp bursts of air strong enough to mow down 200 foot-tall trees in a matter of seconds. In Downdraft , I used aggressive marks and a pink color-palette to create a psychological awareness of urgency in response to stimuli in the natural environment such as logs rolling down the hill at you and expanding smoke columns. These urgent movements in drawing are balanced with quietude created through rendering, which I relate to the time spent observing swaying trees and the formation of cumulonimbus clouds. featured artwork in Fuel Loading "Brush Fit," rip-stop nylon, wool, flannel, fleece, 2023 details of "Brush Fit" responding to Fuel Loading This body of work is based in an appreciation for the quietude within the landscape interrupted by a sense of urgency and distress. I discovered this awareness after spending eight summers as a wildland firefighter. As an artist, I used firefighting to fuel my practice by collecting images, objects, and sensations over the course of each summer in the landscape. The renderings, gestural drawings, and sculptural work are the result of allowing my studio process to mimic my analytical decision making and sensory observation as a wildland firefighter. Brush Fit was inspired by an experience I had while working on a small wildland fire on the Idaho Panhandle National Forest. The fire was named the Delta fire, it was less than half an acre and I was the incident commander in charge of managing the crew and the fire itself. We completed the hand line around the fire the first day and needed to get water to the fire next. With remote, small fires, bladder bags are the typical way to get water into a fire. A bladder bag is essentially a backpack that holds water; when full it's about 50 pounds. The bladder bag is not exactly an exquisite design; it leaks and sloshes around on your back, on top of your fire pack. Luckily I had a crew with a positive attitude. We loaded up our gear, saws, fuel, and the bladder bags, and started on our hike. The hike wasn’t terribly long or steep, which should have made the trek doable. To our dismay, the area we were working was unforgiving in that is was completely overgrown with brush and downed trees. If you were watching us hike from above, you would have seen us all split ways in an effort to find easier paths, quickly discovering that there is no good way to get through the nasty thicket we were up against. I could feel the brushfit building inside of me when my pack and bladder bag kept getting caught on the low branches. A brushfit is when you succumb to the challenges of walking in an overgrown forest and throw a temper tantrum. I remember stopping, grabbing a hold of a tree so that I didn’t roll down the hill, and thinking, What am I doing here? Why do I do this to myself? Why are we even putting this fire out when this whole hillside needs to burn anyway? I caught my breath, and hoofed the rest of the way to fire to get the crew started for the day. In Brush Fit , I use wool, flannel and contemporary outdoor materials to signify a human relationship that is familiar with the natural world. This material references the gear that assists backpackers, hunters, and bikers alike in being outdoors. Initially, the materials are arranged in a neat, clean manner to reference the idealizations and expectations that are often projected onto the landscape. The sculpture progresses into a wrangled mass of shredded material in order to show the trepidation and frustration that sometimes accompany an interaction with nature. more from Kate's perspective This image illuminates some of the visual qualities in Kate’s work, particularly in Are You Sure We are Going the Right Way . Kate is the small figure in the center; her team was holding the line as the fire approached, but it overran their line, so they had to pull out and try again. Here is a rare photo of Kate in her fire gear. She is standing next to her husband; the two of them were on day 14 of a two week fire assignment in Wyoming. They met in 2009 while working together on the fire crew. This image is one of Kate’s favorite representing the landscape where she lives in Silverton, outside of Wallace, Idaho. It was taken a few summers ago, when Kate took an evening hike to one of her favorite lakes, which happens to be just a fifteen minute drive from her house. Spending summers on the fireline meant spending time in places where it was unusual to see water. We are lucky in the Pacific Northwest to be surrounded by bodies of water. Kate took this photo on Lake Pend Oreille in mid-August, Summer 2023. Kate also engages with the landscape by maintaining a backyard garden. She sees it as an extension of her studio practice and an important part of her daily life. Chat back to exhibition Chat
- Ground Truths Spotlight: Megan Hatch | Confluence Lab
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
- Fuel Loading Spotlight: Amiko Matsuo + Brad Monsma | Confluence Lab
featured artists Amiko Matsuo + Brad Monsma Seattle, WA Amiko Matsuo is an artist and educator whose work focuses on transmigration, cultural exchange, and translation. Brad Monsma is a writer and educator tracing models of kinship and resilience and the author of "The Sespe Wild: Southern California’s Last Free River". His essays have appeared in High Country News, The Surfer’s Journal, Kyoto Journal, as well as various anthologies and academic journals. Together, they are co-translators of Art Place Japan (Princeton Architectural Press, 2015), a book by the founder of the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, focused on community and environmental resilience. featured artwork Installation view of "Zuihitsu," temporary public art project, Seattle, WA, 2023 detail view of "Zuihitsu," temporary public art project, Seattle, WA, 2023 "Bat Cone Burn," pyrometric project final form: clay, terra sigillata, underglazes, 2014 "Bat Cone Burn" pyrometric project ritual firing "Pyrometric Whirl," Ink, ash, medium, Phos-Chek flame retardant on paper, 84in x 40in, 2017 "Pyrometric Landscape," ash, medium, Phos-Chek flame retardant on paper; 84in x 40in, 2017 "Pyrometric Landscape" side view responding to Fuel Loading Our Pyrometric project, a series of installations using ceramics, ash, and Phos-chek flame retardant, explores place, identity and materiality in fire-prone landscapes. We began the project in 2010 with site-specific clay bodies and glazes as a way to give materials voice in our collaborative research and creation. We limned historical and active maps of vegetative fuel loads in California’s fire-prone landscapes of forest and chaparral. With local firefighters we devised a ritual brush firing where the ceramic cones revealed the thermal shocks to objects and to emotions: the cones helped us see both flame and our responses more clearly. In 2016, the Pyrometric project expanded to include red Phos-chek, wound-like marks on paper. These expressed the ironies of fire suppression rhetoric while also suggesting the rage of a combustible and intolerant political landscape. The whole earth is fuel-loaded; there is nowhere apart and smoke drifts easily across borders hardened against people. Now that we are residents of Seattle, our work with fire, materiality and climate continues to be relevant. Amiko’s most recent installation offers a cooling space for reflection on climate, migrations, and community. Zuihitsu: Memories and Stories of Migration , under the International Pavilion at the Seattle Center, gathers over 200 fuurin ceramic bells threaded with stories of journeys and connections between students, family, and friends. As these stories catch the wind, the chimes ring with cooling sounds, calling us together to contemplate the changes to come. more from their perspective Resting at Sourdough Gap, enjoying some of the last clear air for weeks, southern Cascades burn scars in the distance. Inspiring Landscape: A hibaku persimmon sapling, grown from a seed from a tree that survived the Hiroshima blast. Fuurin drying underneath the sweetpeas and garlic. Chat back to exhibition Chat
- Ground Truths Spotlight: Margo Geddes | Confluence Lab
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
- AIF Spotlight: Erica Meryl Thomas | Confluence Lab
AIF crew 2024 Erica Meryl Thomas Portland, OR Erica Meryl Thomas is an interdisciplinary artist, educator and labor organizer. Her work explores the ways we relate our personal histories to social, political, and natural histories. She uses the art making process to illuminate and celebrate visible and invisible labor, and visit with the darker sides of place. Her work is collaborative, site specific and often participatory, demanding flexibility of form: installations, printmaking, artist books, storytelling and dialogue, and other experiential forms among them. Her recent practice has centered on the human relationship with wildfire and smoke, utilizing foraged charcoal from wildfire burn sites to produce handmade ink and printing images to tell stories of the landscapes. In 2023, she co-curated and was a participating artist in a group exhibition, Obscurity: life inside the smoke, (World Forestry Center in Portland, OR). Her printmaking and installation presented stories and images of incarcerated wildland firefighters printed with her foraged charcoal ink. The installation invited visitors to send messages to the incarcerated wildland firefighters, and concluded with a show in a minimum security prison where some of the firefighters are based.. In 2014 she received an MFA in Art and Social Practice from Portland State University where she is now a faculty member teaching interdisciplinary courses on art, design and social theory. She is the Co-Chair and Chair of Political Action for Portland State University’s adjunct faculty labor union (PSUFA-AFT local 3571), and uses her voice to create art and action in solidarity with interconnected political, social and environmental movements. TREX involvement More on her story in Fall 2024... but for now, Erica is looking forward to the physical experience of being near and working with fire, and all of the sensory elements (smell, touch, sounds, etc.) that go along with the work. She loves a physical challenge and prefers to learn through doing, so she is excited for the opportunity to be among a crew working together as a means of experiential research. Chat back to AIF residency Chat
- Ground Truths Spotlight: Julie Mortimer | Confluence Lab
featured artist Julie Mortimer Bellingham, WA Julie Mortimer lives in Bellingham, Washington. With an ever-increasing passion to learn and grow, she has been exploring non-traditional watercolor techniques (such as avoiding dry cakes of color) for several years, and is amazed at what the medium can do. Julie spends hours exploring local wooded areas on a daily basis. This is where she feels most at home. featured artwork "Crow Memories" watercolor, 12in x 16in responding to Ground Truths The air was thick with smoke though the fires were not visible to us. Every night I thought about the myriad animals, escaping if they could. Our area went from having pure cedar fragrances, fog misted air to having the worst air quality in the world. I wondered how the birds could even breathe to escape. more from Julie's perspective Julie out exploring the Pacific Northwest. Julie Mortimer at work in her studio. Chat back to exhibition Chat
- Fuel Loading Spotlight: Martina Shenal | Confluence Lab
featured artist Martina Shenal Tucson, AZ Martina Shenal is a Professor of Art in the Photography, Video & Imaging area at the University of Arizona, Tucson. She earned her MFA from Arizona State University and BFA from Ohio State University. She has received grants and fellowships including a Faculty Collaboration Grant for her project Space + Place from the UA Confluence Center for Creative Inquiry; WESTAF/NEA Regional Fellowship; Visual Art Fellowship from the Tennessee Arts Commission; Professional Development Grants from the Arizona Commission on the Arts; and a Contemporary Forum Material Grant from the Phoenix Art Museum. Her works examine human interactions within the landscape–highlighting the ways humans alter, mediate, and represent it. Since 2019, she has focused her work on framing the rapidly changing climate and the accelerating pace and impact of rising seas, hurricanes, super typhoons, and wildfires. featured artwork "Slash Piles 07" archival pigment print, 28.25in x 22.25in, 2022 "Slash Piles 06" archival pigment print, 28.25in x 22.25in, 2022 "Slash Piles" archival pigment print, 28.25in x 22.25in, 2022 responding to Fuel Loading Over the course of the past decade, I've been engaged in fieldwork in the Newberry National Volcanic Monument in central Oregon. In the fall of 2020, as a respite from the fires that had been burning for 7 weeks in the Santa Catalina mountains here in Tucson, I made my way to Oregon, crossing the border just as the numerous wildfires there began burning. The photographic work for the series 20/20 (notes on visibility) was produced over multiple weeks as smoke from fires burning in California, Oregon, and Washington accumulated in the high desert. The series traces a line from the central high desert westward to the coast, moving from the impacts of smoke to coastal fog. The images included here were made in late November 2022, when I began photographing large slash piles that were staged for upcoming prescribed burns near La Pine, Oregon. I was struck by the sheer size and scale of the accumulated material–it felt like I was entering a series of dwellings or villages. My research led me to read about current efforts to create healthy forest ecosystems by reducing fuel loads during the winter season and reverse the decades-long fire suppression strategies that, in combination with drought-related climate warming effects, beetle infestations and the proliferation of non-native vegetation growth, have left the forests vulnerable to intense wildfires. more from Martina's perspective The slash piles are concentrations of leftover materials associated with ongoing forest management to help maintain and restore healthy ecosystems while reducing hazardous fuels loading. La Pine, Oregon. Also from the series 20/20 (notes of visibility) Smith Rock State Park (collapsed crater), Terrebonne, Oregon. Images made in early September 2020 amid wildfires burning in the west, including CA, WA, MT, & OR Markers in area of ongoing thinning and tree removal, La Pine, Oregon Also from the series 20/20 (notes of visibility), Devil’s Chain (rhyodacite flow), Cascade Lakes Highway, Oregon The series 20/20 (notes on visibility) bears witness to the effects of 2,027 raging wildfires that were burning in the west while doing fieldwork in the Newberry National Volcanic Monument in central Oregon. The title references the ability to see with perfect vision, but the chronology of images produced on this trip reflects just the opposite. The air quality in the high desert was deemed the most hazardous in the world at that time, as similar conditions were playing out across the West, fueled by a mega-drought, high temperatures, and strong winds. Chat back to exhibition Chat
- Lab Report 2022 | Confluence Lab
LAB report 2022 directors' statement: 2022 was an exciting year for the Confluence Lab. In Moscow, Leah Hampton thrived in her role as Fellow In Residence, continuing her work on the narrative backbone of the Pacific Northwest Climate Justice Atlas project and bringing a team of Lab members to Oregon for a community workshop (details below). We were thrilled to welcome Sasha White into the Lab as our two-year Mellon Predoctoral Fellow! Sasha will pursue a PhD in Environmental Science while serving as project coordinator for the Atlas. Together with Megan Davis and other Lab interns, and CDIL’s Evan Williamson, Sasha helped create the “Where There Is Smoke” project , a crowd-sourced digital map that documents experiences of wildfire smoke in the Pacific Northwest and further afield. A companion postcard project invites people to share their experiences of wildfire smoke by mail. Lab Co-founder and Co-director Teresa Cavazos Cohn started her new job as Associate Professor in the Department of Natural Resources & the Environment at the University of New Hampshire, expanding the Lab into a trans-regional network and leading a new NSF grant proposal to build on our previous pilot project. Lab members Kristin Haltinner and Dilshani Sarathchandra also submitted a proposal to NSF, which is under review. The Lab celebrated the graduation of our first PhD student, Kayla Bordelon, as we successfully wrapped up a two-year NSF Stories of Fire project. Kayla was awarded Outstanding PhD Student in the Environmental Science Program! In 2023, our core team will continue building the Atlas of Fire projects and developing novel approaches to science communication that center narrative and emotion in all aspects of the scientific process. Lab member Stacy Isenbarger created a beautiful new website for the Lab. member news Lab Co-founder and Co-director Erin James published a new book, Narrative in the Anthropocene (Ohio State University Press). You can hear her speak about this work on two podcasts: New Books in Literary Studies and Narrative for Social Justice . Lab Co-founder and Co-director Jenn Ladino, along with Leda Kobziar, Jack Kredell, and Teresa Cohn, co-authored an article, “How Nostalgia Drives and Derails Living with Wildland Fire in the American West,” for a special issue of the journal Fire dedicated to Rethinking Wildland Fire Governance. It is a free, open-access publication found HERE . A firefighter reaches to connect with a giant sequoia wrapped in protective fire shelter “blankets” in Sequoia National Park during the CA wildfires of September 2021. Image Credit: Gary Kazanjian, Getty Images. Stacy Isenbarger ’s artwork was featured in various exhibitions throughout the US and Broadsided Press’s Anthology Fifteen Years of Poetic and Artistic Collaboration, 2005-2020 published in April. Isenbarger also had three solo exhibitions including Detachment Sweet Detachment (Betty Foy Sanders Visual Arts Gallery, Georgia Southern University, Armstrong Campus, Savannah, GA), Edged Means: Threshold (College of Western Idaho, Nampa, ID) and Erosion of Air (Gardiner Gallery of Art, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK). Isenbarger installing Porch Song in Savannah, GA. Kristin Haltinner and Dilshani Sarathchandra’s forthcoming book Inside the Lives of Climate Change Skeptics (University of Washington Press) features survey and interview data with climate skeptics in the pacific northwest to offer insight into the ways that identity, trust, and ideology shape the complexity of skepticism. Recently they talked about their book in an episode of The Vandal Theory Podcast . Kayla Bordelon completed her PhD and started a new job as Assistant Professor of Practice and Regional Fire Specialist, Western Region, in Oregon State University’s Natural Resources Extension Program. Sasha White exhibited artworks and a collaborative performance piece in the inaugural event for the Fuel Ladder art research group, hosted by the University of Oregon’s Center For Art Research in Eugene, Oregon. The exhibition served as the culminating event for the Pacific Northwest Just Futures Institute’s “Futures of Work” Symposium, in which Erin James presented on the Stories of Fire Atlas Project. events In November the Confluence Lab partnered with Coalicion Fortaleza and Our Family Farms to lead a fire resiliency and map-making workshop in Oregon’s Rogue Valley. The 2020 Almeda Fire impacted the Rogue Valley/Jackson County area profoundly, and local nonprofit organizers invited a Confluence team to the area for an afternoon of inter-organizational reflection, information sharing, and map making. The resulting maps of organizations and county resources will be completed and digitized by a Confluence graphic designer at the University of Idaho and given back to local Rogue Valley organizations to help with their future fire resiliency planning and messaging. Teresa Cohn, Erin James, and Jenn Ladino co-led a workshop at Colorado College in February to pilot their Narrative Science framework. Images from Confluence Community Workshop: Mapping Fire Recovery in Oregon's Rogue Valley Kayla Bordelon, in her role with the NASA-sponsored Earth to Sky Idaho Regional Hub for Climate Communication, co-coordinated a multi-day professional development workshop for Idaho educators in February: “Recharge: Connecting Educators and Scientists to Explore Water Issues in Idaho.” Jenn Ladino joined her for a session on “Engaging Emotions in Climate Change Education.” In May, Erin James traveled to Boise to participate in that city’s first ever Youth Climate Summit. The event, planned and coordinated by local high school students, asked “How can students use storytelling, arts, and civic engagement to promote climate action?” Erin ran a workshop with over sixty students and high school teachers on how stories can help communicate climate change. The Lab hosted Dr. Peter Kalmus , NASA climate scientist, activist, and author of Being The Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution, for a Zoom lecture and conversation on Earth Day, April 22: “Facts Aren’t Enough: Communicating Earth Breakdown.” We are grateful for the co-sponsorship of ENVS, ENGL, JAMM, the Sustainability Center, and the Citizens Climate Lobby. Boise Youth Climate Summit. Photo credit: Jenny Wolf Dr. Peter Kalmus Jenn Ladino and Kayla Bordelon completed the final two community workshops in their IHC-sponsored series, “Our Changing Climate: Finding Common Ground Through Climate Fiction,” in Lewiston and Grangeville in May. Erin was thrilled to receive an invitation to participate in the American Fisheries Society conference in Spokane in August. Organizers of the “Advances in Endogenous Records with Connections to Indigenous Knowledge, Lands, and Waterways” panel sought out the Lab’s expertise in the uses of storytelling in science communication and practice. We featured the research of ENVS PhD students at two working lunches in the fall. In September, Sasha White introduced her creative project, First Aid Kit for the Fire-Prone, which investigates slippages of art, medicine and ecology in Oregon’s fire-prone landscapes; Phin Lampman shared his work in Leda Kobziar’s lab piloting drones equipped with various air samplers, meteorological sensors, and cameras for remote sensing over wildland fires. He even brought in a drone to show us! In November, Jack Kredell and Grace Pevin shared research projects on fire and water at the Taylor Wilderness Research Station, focusing on how environmental change and disturbance plays a critical role in determining scientific as well as personal attachments to landscape. upcoming 2023 events: In conjunction with the Prichard Art Gallery of the University of Idaho, we will host a three-part, juried online art exhibition series called Stories of Fire . This series is organized by Stacy Isenbarger, Sasha White, Megan Davis & North Bennett. Part one, Ground Truths , is scheduled to open online in early April 2023. past reports: 2021 2020 2019
- Fuel Loading Spotlight: Karin Bolender | Confluence Lab
featured artist Karin Bolender / Rural Alchemy Workshop Philomath, OR The Rural Alchemy Workshop (R.A.W.) is a station for collaborative, experimental art-research practices that root in ecologies (all the faunal, floral, mineral, and chemical forms that comprise them), rural-urban cultural frictions, and specific acts of un/naming and imaginative, responsive, and respectful more-than-human storying and habitation. Founded in Carnesville, Georgia in 2008, the R.A.W. has worked at the edges of Philomath, Oregon’s patchwork forests and pastures since 2013. The prime investigator and main anarchivist of the R.A.W. is artist-researcher Karin Bolender, aka K-Haw Hart. The R.A.W.’s transdisciplinary projects hold space for ‘untold’ more-than-human stories and experimental anarchives within meshes of landflows and waterways, domestic and wild mammals, plants, microbes, and many others. featured artwork "RQP Card," Traditional rodeo queens, when making public appearances as ambassadors for the Western Way of Life, are armed with "autograph cards," which they sign for admirers. The Rodeo Queen of the Pyrocene, being a fugitive of sorts, does not proffer public appearances or signatures. Yet investigations have nevertheless turned up what seems to be an autograph card, one of few existing pictures of them. Authorities suspect it may serve as some kind of coded communique to those on their trail. responding to Fuel Loading Through pursuit of an elusive and radical figure known as the “Rodeo Queen of the Pyrocene,” the R.A.W. investigates a flammable mare’s nest of rural-urban frictions grounded in generic myths of the “Western Way of Life,” as they manifest in Pacific Northwest forestry, ranching, conservation, and other land-management practices, in both obvious and less visible ways. As an official “ambassador for the Western Way of Life” (the job description of most every rodeo queen), the RQP thunders in and out of arena spotlights, waving a spectacular, distracting red flag amidst the more hidden dimensions of cultural, capital, and fossil flows and legacies that shape the land as we (don’t) know it and fuel its range of conflagrations. But hounding the hot trail of the RQP, as she makes her rounds from the Arctic Circle to Down Under, is a posse of undercover agents and herbivorous grazers, mounting a widespread back-burn operation against her unchecked reign. This underground network is known to have cells in places known as “Oregon,” “California,” “Scandinavia,” and “Australia” (though those might well be code names). In cahoots with a globally dispersed posse, the R.A.W.’s investigation seeks to track and catalog actions and methods involved in efforts to predict and assuage the ever-shifting paths and cycles of the Pyrocene Queen’s wild rides. The R.A.W. is rooted in Philomath, OR, in the thick of western forests and their industries, management practices, conservation aims, and related conflicts. Philomath is also home for 50+ years to a major node of PNW rodeo culture, the Philomath Frolic and Rodeo. The RQP grows directly out of this vortex of storied and submerged western “pulp frictions”: too-slow reckonings with questions of climate crisis within rural-urban cracks, and even longer, deeper, pricklier engagements with domestic herds and flocks and the ways they and their feral cousins inhabit and graze the grasses, shrubs, and forest edges of precarious earthly places. Regionally, the RQP is also linked to hotspots in California, including burning deserts and a specific plot of former pine forest in Paradise, to which the R.A.W. has familial connections across five fast and furious generations of settler enterprise. more from R.A.W.'s perspective Rodeo Mystery Clues #11 and #5: From the anarchives of the R.A.W.'s ongoing investigation, these images show the Philomath Rodeo Grounds in the Great Rodeo Gap Year of 2020, in early summertime when the activities of the RQP were smoldering underground. Rodeo Mystery Clue #7: A fire broke out at the Philomath Frolic and Rodeo Grounds in early summer 2022, two weeks before the rodeo was to take place. The fire consumed roughly a third of the historic grandstands before it could be contained. No perpetrator has been identified. Perhaps it was an accident; these things happen. Chat back to exhibition Chat