CONTEMPORARY PARA-WILDS: PAINTED DESERTS

 

Hypermobile transportation technologies require empty, sterile voids free of obstruction - roads, highways, parking lots, loading zones, airport runways. A similar emptiness is also found in sports fields and paved recreational spaces. Action within these landscapes is usually structured and defined by a ground marking system of painted symbols, graphic boundaries, and directional signs.

 

Designed to be lifeless, these spaces are nevertheless sites for para-wild pioneer plant species that exploit the ruptures, seams, and fractures in these desert-like environments.  The GR 2013 weaves in an out of these transit deserts, functioning as an observation platform for tracking the emergent novel ecosystems that are adapting to these increasingly prevalent landscapes.