Hide and Seek, 2026

Audio/visual installation and mural comprised of acrylic and latex house paint and spray paint.

Sculptural element is created using a fallen tree branch mounted in a Christmas tree holder and black mulch with LED rope lights.

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When I was ten years old, living in White Rock, New Mexico, my family and all of my neighbors were evacuated during the Cerro Grande Fire. I remember my parents waking me in the middle of the night to quickly gather photo albums, important documents, and our cat before joining thousands of others fleeing the area. What should have been a two-minute drive out of our neighborhood became hours of standstill traffic. I vividly remember finally reaching the main road and seeing flames burning along a route I had traveled almost every day to get to school. It was the first time I understood that a wildfire was not an abstract force somewhere in the distance. In that moment, it was coming for my home and everything that made up my world.

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That memory has stayed with me ever since.

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Today, unfortunately, those experiences are shared by an ever-growing number of people across California and beyond, as wildfires have become provenly more frequent, more intense, and harder to control or predict.

 

The Process

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When I first toured this space while it was still vacant, I was immediately drawn to this small, awkward closet tucked beneath the stairs in the basement. The sloping ceiling and narrow alcove felt like something I could play into. The kid in me flagged it as a great spot to hide in a game of hide-and-seek.

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The longer I sat with the space, however, the more that initial sense of play transformed into something much heavier. The walls seemed to fold inward, like they were collapsing on me. The sharp angles began to evoke danger. The indented alcove began to seem like a cave.

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As an artist, my practice often centers on themes of sustainability and our relationship with the environment. I found myself returning to a subject that has become impossible to ignore, especially during this time of year: wildfire.

 

The Work

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I transformed the room into the interior of an active fire, allowing the mural to flow continuously across every wall and ceiling so that visitors feel surrounded by flames. I painted the scene in a very similar fashion to my layered abstract paintings on canvas: no sketch, no specific plan, just improvisation and intuition over many passes until I felt it was resolved. I am incredibly grateful to Faith for trusting me with this approach.

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While painting, I repeatedly bumped my head against the low ceiling, a constant physical reminder of how quickly the space closes in. The entire process felt very appropriate for the theme, echoing the claustrophobia and chaos of growing flames.

At the back of the installation, the alcove became a dark cavern where a mother bear and her cub flee through smoke and darkness. Their escape serves as a reminder that wildfire reshapes entire ecosystems, displacing communities of all species that call these landscapes home.

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At the center of the piece stands a fallen tree branch I found caught in a neighbor's fence. As it naturally dried upside down, its leaves faded and curled into a bright orange, resembling a tree consumed by fire without any intervention on my end. Surrounding it are bark and LED rope lights that create the illusion of glowing embers scattered across the forest floor, extending the mural into three dimensions and blurring the boundary between painting and sculpture.

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Sound became the final and most important component of the installation. Using audio from several news stories and public archives from my research, I collected real 911 and emergency dispatch calls from multiple recent California wildfires. These recordings, combined with layered sounds of fire, wind and the natural environment, create an evolving audio collage that traces the progression of a wildfire—from its initial spark and first report, through escalating evacuations, to the chaos and destruction that follow. The voices heard throughout are real people responding to real emergencies and reinforce just how impossible it is to overcome a wildfire.

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The final part of the audio includes the 911 call of Don Andrews, a firefighter who was trapped in his bulldozer in the middle of a fire tornado during the Carr Fire in 2018. Don survived that day. You can read more about him and the details of that day through some incredible reporting by Lizzie Johnson: https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2018/carr-fire-tornado/

Presenting this work inside a building with its own history of emergency response gave me a lot to reflect on. Listening to these recordings helped me further appreciate the intricacies of the unseen labor and incredible heroism of dispatchers, firefighters, scientists, journalists, volunteers and countless others who guide communities through moments of unimaginable uncertainty every single day. The audio became emotionally difficult to assemble, but that weight felt essential.

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Hide and Seek reflects on our collective reality while honoring everyone whose lives have been touched by wildfire, from those forced to flee to those who dedicate their lives to protecting others. It asks viewers and listeners to consider not only the devastation fire leaves behind, but also the resilience, compassion, and collective responsibility required to face an increasingly uncertain future together.

 

Audio Sources

• National Park Service Sound Library

• KQED News

• KTVU News

• Record Searchlight

• CBS National Evening News

• San Francisco Chronicle

• ScannerPacific

• Tac4 Fireground Archives

• Fireground Audio Archive

• Broadcastify

• Epidemic Sound