FOREST FIRES
A multidisciplinary gallery show exploring the parallels between fire-adapted ecosystems and the human experience of grief.
Denial —
Smokey Bear symbolizes the US Forest Service’s short-sighted repression of wildfire in the twentieth century.
Bargaining —
Fire fighting efforts, while noble, cannot keep up with the damage done by fire repression and subsequent super fires.
FIVE STAGES PAINTINGS
The paintings of Forest Fires are each themed after the five stages of grief — a model popularized by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book On Death & Dying.
Drawing from both ecologic themes and imagery specific to Eddie's grieving process, these paintings loom silently over the more educational tree carvings. Wordless, bulky, confusing, massive — not unlike grief itself.
Anger —
Black bears, among other species, lose 7 million acres of habitat to extreme, over-repressed wildfires annually.
Depression —
Even trees that evolved in partnership with natural wildfires are not safe from the immensity and frequency of super fires.
Acceptance —
Fire repression can still be remedied by employing Indigenous land practices like prescribed burns. Thanks to collaborative conservation efforts, the Kirtland’s warbler (once critically endangered by the repression of fire in its jack pine habitats) has made an incredible recovery.
FIRE-ADAPTED TREES
Forest Fires was inspired by the pyrophytic life cycles of three tree species — the giant sequoias of California; the longleaf pines of northern Florida; and the jack pines of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
The survival of these trees relies on periodic wildfires. In fire, the cones of these conifers dry, contract, and release their seeds — ensuring their saplings a head start on life. When a forest burns, older, fallen trees are broken down and returned to the earth as nutrient-dense soil. Bramble and understory plants that would otherwise compete with young trees are cleared away in the blaze. Sunlight from new gaps in the canopy finally reaches the forest floor — in some cases, for the first time in thousands of years.
