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Outdoor art exhibit in Seattle ‘a call for help from the forest’ amid growing wildfire risks

Visitors explore and rest at “Distress Signal,” one of three art installations at Seattle Center. The pieces are part of “The Smoke Season,” an outdoor exhibit studying wildfires and their impact on human health and the environment.
Parker Miles Blohm
/
KNKX
Visitors explore and rest at “Distress Signal,” one of three art installations at Seattle Center. The pieces are part of “The Smoke Season,” an outdoor exhibit studying wildfires and their impact on human health and the environment.";s:3:"u

In 2017, smoke from the Jolly Mountain Fire in Eastern Washington engulfed the Puget Sound region. Now, the wildfire’s remains comprise striking art installations at Seattle Center. “The Smoke Season,” the outdoor exhibit by artist Ted Youngs, runs through Sept. 15.

"It’s really a call for help from the forest," Youngs said. He says the exhibit aims to draw attention to the wildfire seasons that have come into Seattle in the past two years in the form of smoke.

Ten 40-foot burnt logs — arranged to spell out “SOS”— sit beneath the Space Needle for an installation called “Distress Signal.”

Another blackened tree from that fire sits under the Pacific Science Center arches, labeled “Lone Fir.” The tall spire mimics the shape of the Space Needle that looms over it. A third installation places four trees on the lawn near Broad Street, to resemble the shadows of the living maple trees there.

Youngs said he hopes the logs and dead trees on the grounds of the Seattle Center will help spark a broader conversation about wildfire and about the climate crisis.

He got the idea for the exhibit last summer after, for the second year in row, wildfire smoke descended on the city. Youngs said it got to the point where he just couldn’t take it anymore. He needed to do something. He decided to drive to Eastern Washington to the source of the smoke from the previous year, the Jolly Mountain Fire.

"I literally left my family at 11 at night,” he said. “I was like 'I can’t be in this smoke anymore.'"

He drove over Snoqualmie Pass and turned off near the town of Cle Elum until he reached Jolly Mountain. He climbed up to look at the aftermath of the burn. He said he came to a sort of bowl where there were about 600 dead trees.

"All were over a hundred feet tall and they had all been blown down in exactly the same direction, sort of like dominoes,” Youngs said. “As I started to look at this I felt like I really needed to share the source of smoke with Seattle and bring some of these trees back.”

He got permission from the Washington Department of Natural Resources to remove the trees, hired a logging company and had the logs and dead trees transported to the Seattle Center, where they were lowered onto the grounds with a crane.

The biggest installation, the “Distress Signal,” is easy to read from the top of the Space Needle, but at street level it's less obvious; it just appears to be an odd arrangement of logs. During a recent visit, tourists and others on the lawn near the Seattle Center used the logs for seating. Some children played on them. They seemed unaware of the point behind the project.

But, Youngs said, that's the nature of public art — you can't prescribe how people will interact with it. And, in a way, their lack of awareness may be the point. Sometimes, he said, climate crisis problems are "too big to take in."

“There’s something powerful about that sort of proximity and blindness,” Youngs said.

Paula is a former host, reporter and producer who retired from KNKX in 2021. She joined the station in 1989 as All Things Considered host and covered the Law and Justice beat for 15 years. Paula grew up in Idaho and, prior to KNKX, worked in public radio and television in Boise, San Francisco and upstate New York.