In October 2007, the largest fire in California history swept through parts of Orange, San Diego, San Bernardino and Riverside Counties.Thousands of residents were evacuated and some lost their homes. Many more saw the fires from a distance, breathed in the smoke and heard non-stop news of the fires on TV and radio, but did not see any physical evidence of the fires on the landscape and in their communities.
In the Santiago Fire Plant Project, we gave viewers the opportunity to confront the effects of the fire up close. Working with three different local entities affected by the fire, the Tucker Wildlife Sanctuary in Modjeska Canyon, The Orange County Public Works dept. and the Trabuco Canyon Ramakrishna Monastery, we gathered native plant samples from crucial plant and animal communities affected by the fire. These included the Coastal Sage Scrub Community, Riparian Woodland and the Chaparral Community.
In January 2008, a few months after the fires, we created a wall sculpture out of the plants we had gathered. We included plants from many areas affected by the fire, some charred, some semi-burned and others untouched. To us, they represented the effects of the fire: on communities of plants, animals and humans, and on the land itself. Above all, in a sea of hype created by a media frenzy and actual damage to people's lives, we wished to highlight the role of fire as a destructive force in part of a larger cycle of nature.
Plants from The Santiago Fire Region
Orange Coast College Art Gallery
January to March, 2008
Plsants
