About the Exhibition
FOREST⇌FIRE is an inter-disciplinary, multi-sensory installation connecting art, the humanities and science, currently on display at Truckee Community Recreation Center, 10981 Truckee Way, Truckee, CA 96161. FOREST⇌FIRE flows thematically through past, present, and future, utilizing painting, textiles, beadwork, sculpture, photography and more, to tell the story of forest ecology and its relationship with fire: Of how indigenous people, using low intensity fire, created and maintained the West’s pre-European, old growth forest for thousands of years, of why our forests are currently in ecological collapse, and what can be done immediately to prevent the loss of our forests.
Through the story and artwork of 19 California writers and artists, the exhibition:
Shares a science-based solution to catastrophic fire.
Addresses the paradox that some trees need to be removed to save the forest.
Explains why fire needs to become our partner in returning the forest to resiliency.
Provides a vision of what a healthy future forest actually looks like.
Offers an economically sustainable, hopeful future for the forest.
Aims to activate a transformative cultural understanding that we learn to live as a part of Nature, rather than apart from nature in facing climate change
Bringing our forests back into equilibrium (⇌) with fire via small tree and slash reduction combined with traditional low intensity burns, will regenerate healthy, fire-resistant, large-tree-forests of pristine beauty and great utility, personally affecting each and every Californian. Healthy, large-tree forests purify our water and air, slow the effects of global warming via carbon sequestration, encourage biodiversity, and provide an endless and sustainable source of small-tree timber products and the jobs that result from maintaining a healthy forest ecosystem into the future.
what is forest⇌fire
FOREST⇌FIRE is a new project curated by Nevada County Arts Council Artist-in-Residence Michael Llewellyn engaging the Truckee-Donner community living within the Tahoe National Forest. A culminating art installation in December 2021, invited science-based solutions to catastrophic fire and offered an economically sustainable, hopeful future. FOREST⇌FIRE is a partnership between Nevada County Arts Council, Truckee Donner Recreation & Park District and UC Berkeley’s Sagehen Creek Field Station.
background
During 2018 Nevada County Arts Council formed a partnership with UC Berkeley’s Sagehen Creek Field Station. Sagehen’s Director, Jeff Brown, had participated in “Belonging”, a short documentary film that premiered at Nevada City Film Festival in September 2018 and at Wild & Scenic Film Festival in January 2019. In this film, Director Ruth Chase meets with local people to seek insights into our most sensitive issues, including forest management. Belonging exposed viewers to a new way of thinking about the land we live on, and the people – past and present – who have been responsible for its care. These include Nevada County’s earliest tribespeople, the Nisenan.
At the same time, Nevada County Arts Council Artist-in-Residence Michael Llewellyn began to work with us on plans for an ambitious public art installation in collaboration with Truckee Donner Recreation and Park District, Truckee Public Art Commission, and a core group of California artists and cultural leaders, including our Washoe tribespeople. Our project is called FOREST⇌FIRE
To many, the history of Truckee begins with pioneers crossing the Donner Pass on their way to California. However, human occupancy can be traced thousands of years before this to the peoples of the Washoe and Nisenan tribes who depended upon these lands for food, water, and recreation. In managing their lands, fire was as natural and essential a part of their lives as the passing of the seasons.
California is experiencing a wildfire crisis. What used to be a six month fire season has grown to become a year-round challenge, the result of both climate change and past forest management practices. On the one hand our timber industry, having contributed to the problem, is slow to respond to key research findings and change and, on the other, environmentalism has resisted any kind of forest management at all. Neither approach is natural or beneficial.
why
FOREST⇌FIRE is a project that engages the Truckee-Tahoe community living within the Tahoe National Forest in the Sierra Nevada. Its purpose is to help residents arrive at a transformative cultural understanding about the forest they live in, its relationship with fire ,and their role within that relationship. Through an interpretive art installation and artist-led field trips, FOREST⇌FIRE shares a science-based solution to catastrophic fire and offers an economically hopeful future for the forest and the Truckee-Donner community.
how you can get involved
FOREST⇌FIRE offers our public an opportunity to understand and participate in issues and solutions, instead of retreating to polarized arguments that have delayed much needed policy change. It will serve one of California’s communities most vulnerable to wildfire, both directly and indirectly.
In late 2021 our public exhibition shared stories of how we got here, and how we might get through this crisis together, using art and creativity that responds to forests, to fire, and to the people who live and work with both.
