Response & Responsibility is a collaborative performance, sculpture, and series of inkjet prints which document the burning of a barbed-wire wrapped dining set. This project was done in a large natural burn scar in Central Utah using discarded barbed wire with Alec Bang.
A response to the conversation of land use in the west.
A response to the barbed wire fences which segment the land into manageable
parcels.
A response to a large wildfire which burned down some of those fences in Central Utah.
A response to the colonization which put those fences there, displacing millions of Indigenous people.
A responsibility to begin repairing the damage caused those actions.
Barbed wire fences have been used to segment off and conquer the west for the last
200 years. What was once an endless, balanced, flourishing ecosystem has now
become a segmented, over-grazed, polluted “resource” to be milked for profit.
Barbed wire fences signify and epitomize the wave of colonization which caused this
transition, along with the displacement and genocide of millions of Indigenous people
in the west. As descendants of colonizers, this work is an acknowledgement and
response to the actions of our ancestors; a call on ourselves and others to take
responsibility for those actions. As decisions about land management are made, we
ask ourselves and others to think about how actions and votes affect the
Indigenous descendants who still live here in the west, and still bear a strong
connection to the land which many people may think of only as a resource.
Douglas Tolman 