Artist Talk: Following Fire and Fire Maps

Join us in the Discovery Museum’s art gallery for a behind the scenes conversation with the creators of World Forestry Center’s featured temporary exhibitions. Following Fire, A Resilient Forest / An Uncertain Future by photographer David Paul Bayles and disturbance ecologist Frederick Swanson, studies the recovery of 173,000 acres of forests and towns that burned along the McKenzie River during the Holiday Farm Fire in Oregon in 2020. Photographs weave a complex story of forest and community resilience in the face of growing challenges and uncertainties. Fire Maps is an installation created by artist Kate Simmons and is inspired by her personal experience with wildfire evacuation during the Riverside Fire of Oregon that affected 138,054 acres of land along the Clackamas River and Mt. Hood National Forest in 2020. The forms are molded from clay with immediacy to reflect the sudden and abrupt demand for people to evacuate their homes in response to the wildfire threat. The surface decoration of the figures is informed by satellite maps that tracked the progression of the fire and roadside evacuation markings left by authorities.