Dason Coyote Culver

Albuquerque, New Mexico

“Culture Burn” | 2023 Paseo Project Artist in Residence

The Paseo Project presented a summer 2023 Media Arts residency and installation by Dason Coyote Culver, a New Mexico based artist who was recently featured in the 2022 PASEO events. Dason’s longstanding involvement with local New Mexico artists and collaborators will help to inform the month long residency in Taos, July 16 - August 12.

Culver presented a project called “Culture Burn,” which deals with the heated topic of federal prescribed forest burns vs. the long standing tradition of indigenous “Cultural Burns” an ancient practice that has been heavily restricted by US Gov. Factors despite centuries long pleas from the indigenous peoples whose land is routinely burned without discretion by said federal entities. Not only does this project seek to enlighten upon the tradition of Cultural Burns, but also aims to confront the US Governments own tradition of ‘burning’ the incredibly important cultural aspects of our indigenous peoples. This project does not seek to diminish the importance of ‘prescribed burns’ by the National Forest Service, but instead to open a conversation on how “Good Fire” can be put back into the hands of our communities, who ultimately have a much stronger and dependent connection with the land they have maintained for millennia.

Culture Burn is a project seeded from the ashes of the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire and Black Fire that arose in the Spring of 2022. While on separate swathes of New Mexico Forest, these two fires burned approximately 300,000 acres each, putting them in the 1st and 2nd position for most destructive fires in modern New Mexico history. Although both fires were human caused, it is slowly being revealed the Hermits Peak fire was a direct result of Federal negligence and disregard for the communities concerns and warnings.

To visually engage the audience in this heavy topic, a large scale area representing a cultural burn was built during Dason’s residency that utilizes a mixed medium interactive environment, projection mapping, and LED Mapping. This approximately 25’x25’ environment consists of a large array of tall acrylic cylinders ascending in a uniform height and arranged in a neatly spaced circle crop with an interactive centerpiece in middle. These upright cylinders act as a representation of the tree trunks in a forest, and their spacing will mimic the sight of what a freshly burned forest floor looks like. Not only do these cylinders act to represent the trees, but their spacing and placement will also act as a visual wall from the side that creates a surface for imagery to be projected onto from multiple angles. The projected imagery will range from atmospheric visuals to contextual and educational imagery related to the subject matter.

Within several of the acrylic cylinders, sets of LED lights will be added to allow for an inner glow; these glowing cylinders will be layered with large pieces of bark to the exterior to allow for cracks of light to seep through the bark, similar to how fire will seep out of the cracks in a tree.

In the very center of this circle alignment of cylinders sits a stand with a single oversized 3D printed sprout in a container of soil. This sprout has a false base underneath that contains a water activated electronic switch, participants are invited to add their own water to this sprout, and in turn this switch activates a set of coded LED lights within the sprout and within the select number of cylinders layered in bark, bringing life to the sprout and changing the lights of the burning trees from fiery reds to a cooling blend of greens and blues. Through the act of participants offering their water to this sprout, they are giving their own genuine resource transaction to the site and actively engaging in an important step of the cultural burning process by adding water to protect the site and giving life to the new growth after a burn.

In the process of building the Culture Burn installation, Dason worked closely with the Paseo Project 2023 Interns in order to construct and maintain the project, giving knowledge as to how the process of each element works and how a large scale installation is built in a safe and respectful way to its surroundings. During his one month stay, Dason worked with Twirl in offering a one-day workshop exploring our relationship to seeds and earth.

Artist Discussion with Director, Matt Thomas