Love and Protect

Art Installation for Audubon Center

Temporary art installation along a bird-watching trail at the Audubon Center in Los Angeles' Debs Regional Park. Featuring endangered species.

Hikers see brightly colored posts decorating the hillside. Coming closer, viewers realize the posts align vertically forming a line of cohesive imagery. A ring atop each post frames “hidden” environmental messages visible by birders through binoculars. Meaning culminates at hilltop with a simple message calling each viewer to protect Earth's atmosphere: "love and protect the blue gossamer strip sheltering you / -454° / it's cold in space"

Theme
Our atmosphere makes life on Earth possible, not only providing breath, but also sheltering us from ice‐cold outer space, UV rays, solar flares, and more. This shared atmospheric shelter is an extraordinarily balanced molecular dance which lives in a thin blue gossamer strip 1/100th the thickness of our planet. Together, plants and animals form the lungs of the world, and for millions of years maintained equilibrium. Deforestation threatens this delicate balance. Without broad leaves in old‐growth forests, carbon released through pollution can’t be reabsorbed through plants. The same forces driving species to extinction by habitat loss, threaten our atmospheric shelter.

Funded by: City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs and Los Angeles County Arts Commission

Commissioned: 2019

Materials: wood, aluminum, steel, industrial vinyl