In the hiking universe, dark matter comprises not only health and leisure, but also travel to a trailhead. We still need to drive in order to walk. “Taking a Wheel for a Walk” asks what would happen if, after a car delivers us to the trail, we had to take part of the car the rest of the way up the mountain with us. The environmental load of this conference and individual outing becomes a burden we can’t leave behind.

This project addresses the theme of future landscapes with the peculiar properties of its materials. Earlier in my career, I made land art with old tires. I liked their softness underfoot, but could not overcome their smell, or the way they can’t really be discarded. It’s a weird but telling fact that tires are so buoyant they won’t stay buried. Cover them with the heaviest earth movers, and within months, they come back up to the surface. Fitting, then, that tires are also a tool of resistance movements around the world.

Conceived for a road cut, gravel pit, or exposed ridgetop, Wheel assembles a landscape on site in Prespa. Participants arrive on wheels, then carry them further to create a climate baseline. Next, we elevate it. Finally, we emancipate it.