Signal Fire residency: Unwalking the West
I am truly excited to participate in a residency this June with Signal Fire (not to be confused with the “media project of the Maoist Communist Group” nor the reimagined venture capital firm, two entities with the same name) called Unwalking John C. Frémont. It is part of their Unwalking the West theme this year. We (ten artists and two artist-guides) will be hiking, camping and backpacking in the Upper Klamath Basin region of southern Oregon while taking a deep dive into environmental, social and political issues that affect the area. Such a terrific opportunity to research and connect with a landscape in the far west for this native of Northern California who has been living the NYC life for maybe too long.
Description from their site:
What Western U.S. city doesn’t have a street named after “The Pathfinder,” John C. Frémont? This trip revisits portions of the route of Frémont’s calamitous Second Expedition (1843-4), a foray into empire-building conducted under the guise of exploration. Frémont’s journey provides an entry point to learning about an exceptional and very contested place: the Upper Klamath Basin.
We will begin our trip in the ancestral land of the Modocini, Mak’Lak and Yahooskin tribes (comprising The Klamath Tribes). Our contextual materials will include an introduction to Klamath’s ecological “knot” as well as focus on Indigenous Survivance and sovereignty, from the Modoc War to the contemporary fight for Indigenous water and fishing rights. We will introduce content about the current political landscape of a place that sees very different communities working together to solve conflicts over vital natural resources.
Both local and visitors’ voices will contribute to our understanding of the forces that have shaped the Basin: dams, grazing, and land theft, as well as problem solving through patient and resourceful strategies. We’ll spend the first half of the trip in the former Klamath reservation at Chiloquin, Modoc Point and traveling along the Sprague River, visiting important cultural sites and meeting with visiting presenters. Then we’ll head into the Lava Beds National Monument to visit the strongholds of the Modicini where Kintpuash (Captain Jack) and a band of Modocs successfully fought off the U.S. Government troops for 5 months in the late 1800’s. The second half of our trip will include a short backpacking adventure in the mountains surrounding the Klamath Basin—wildlands whose waters feed this oasis.
