Focusing on Utah’s West Desert, Jaclyn Wright’s work aims to illustrate the struggle between thenatural world and its codification by bureaucrats, the visible and invisible and the ironies of fantasies offreedom and nativism on stolen land.Located on the western side of the Great Salt Lake, much of the West Desert, the ancestral home of theGoshute people, is managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The area is classified by the US FederalGovernment as ‘public lands’ yet significant acreage is privately leased for mining and cattle ranching andnearly one-third of the area is used as biological and chemical weapons testing grounds. The lake is rapidlydrying up due to overuse and human-caused ecological change—threatening millions of migratory birdsand the population of Salt Lake City. The remaining areas are open to various uses, including improvisedgun ranges.The motif of the colour blaze orange is dispersed throughout the book as a nod to the most conspicuoustype of debris found in the West Desert ranges—blaze orange clay pigeons.These aerial targets are painted this colour to ensure they stand out against the sky on a clear day andagainst a natural landscape. A colour created to oppose nature, not to be confused with it.
Artikkel nr.
ad421ea4-7eef-45e3-9d8f-86bdd339a90e
Kommentar