artist in residence: playing with fire
Summer has turned into Wildfire season. This reality is a constant threat and is on our doorstep – literally an hour’s drive away during the 2015 Little Bobtail Lake Fire and the 2018 Shovel Lake Fire – in both cases Prince George was involved as an evacuation centre.
In response I devised a project to address the ‘threat’ of fire called ‘Playing with Fire’ to be delivered during KidsArt Dayz where over 10,000 members of the public engage in the arts in Prince George.
Over the course of two days the public engaged in the project by helping to create a new forest of life-size paper tree shapes trees using wildfire charcoal.
After the trees were created they were immediately installed in the Rustad Galleria at the Gallery – the public were encouraged to talk about wildfire when creating the tree and to experience the concept of regenerating a forest – as nature would.
To experience the project click here to go to a short video on the installation