Fire

In 2015, Canada saw at total of 3,004,848 hectares of land burned by forest fires across provinces from British Columbia to Ontario. Forest fires occur every year in Canada. Fire is important to the natural life cycle of certain ecosystems, including that of the longpole pine that requires intensive heat to release it's seed. Fire helps ecosystems grow, however when this natural cylce encrouches on "human territory" humans are forced to evacuate and find some way to control it. We are in the presence of mother nature as it risks destroying our homes and affecting our lives. At the same time, in contrast to our "natural" role as humans on this Earth we are implicit in heating up this earth and affecting the lives of ecosystems around us. Fire an investigation into this relationship between the natural cycles of fire/heat and it's effect on ours and other ecosystems. The video work was filmed in Saskatechewan during a residency and the natural physical materials included the installation were gathered from burn sites in the Okanagan. The artist spent the duration of the project scraping the burned portions of the trees to expose the non-burned cores and using this charcoal to cover lodgepole pine that were placed in rows, like houses, along the public sidewalk. The public also engaged in direct conversations with the artitst around this senstive relationship with the eco-system.

Installation by Kevin Jesuino

Video by Kevin Jesuino

With Assistance from Morris Fox

The work was presented as part of the Nuit Blanche: Kelowna 2015 programming and was featured at Kelown Fire Hall Station #2.