A project by a Newcastle University artist is being broadcast across billboards in California to highlight the brutal impact of forest fires.
Professor Uta Kögelsberger's multi-channel project was created in response to the 2020 Castle Fire in California, which burned 174,000 acres of Sequoia National Forest and destroyed 14% of the world's giant sequoia population.
Read on to find out more about Uta's work, and the impact it has had on the way we think about environmental devastation and regeneration.
Contents:
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What is Fire Complex?
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Images from the exhibition
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Where can I see Fire Complex?
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About Professor Uta Kögelsberger
What is Fire Complex?
Fire Complex is an art project that unites photography and video in the public realm to build momentum and resources for the regeneration of our forests.
The anchor piece of Fire Complex is the multi-channel video work, Cull, which follows the post-fire recovery process following the Castle Fire. It charts the efforts of the teams responsible for cutting down the dead trees left standing that are now endangering the remaining structures and roads.
In an orchestrated choreography, each tree is documented as it comes crashing to the ground like a dead carcass, sometimes falling with such force that the earth beneath it shakes.
A series of photographs presents the now-dead giant sequoias on their side; enormous, charred monuments for a world that has been turned upside down. One of Kögelsberger’s billboard performances – or rather, as she calls them, action photographs – shows the stumps of the now cut-down trees layered on top of one another, bearing witness to hundreds of years of growth with each tree erasing the history of the previous one.
Images from the exhibition
Images from the project have been collected and are available to view on the Fire Complex Instagram page, featured below:
Where can I see Fire Complex?
Fire Complex was designed to be seen on billboards, directly becoming an agent in the public realm.
Set in stark contrast to the urban environment where the impact of climate change often seems an abstract reality, the works become a timely reminder of the impact of our daily actions.
On 1st February 2022, the project went live in Los Angeles with Cull exhibited on a large digital screen in Downtown Los Angeles, and a series of photographic installations hosted across four different locations in Hollywood. The work continues its presence in the public sphere through its Instagram page.
A detailed account of the project can be found in the below video, or by visiting Fire Complex: Art and Recovery after Disaster on YouTube.
About Professor Uta Kögelsberger
Uta Kögelsberger, a Professor of Practice in Fine Art at Newcastle University, initiated Fire Complex after a large part of the community in Sequoia Crest, including her cabin, burned to the ground in the 2020 Castle Fire. This is a project that starts with the very personal but communicates a universal emergency.
Additional collaborators included the Rotary Club, whose volunteers will help the project replant 6000 trees in spring in the communities of Sequoia Crest, Alpine Village and Cedar Slope.
Fire Complex is aimed at raising resources and momentum towards the regeneration of the area. It involves a replanting project in collaboration with the community, Forest Services, with the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive, and Cal Fire. Additional collaborators included the Rotary Club, whose volunteers will help us replant 6000 trees in spring in the communities of Sequoia Crest, Alpine Village and Cedar Slope.
Find out more:
- see more of Professor Kögelsberger's project on the Fire Complex Instagram account
- discover more about what we are doing for our Culture and Creative Arts community
- explore the creative work and achievements of Newcastle University academics in our From blog
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