The Day of Two Suns 〔04〕

The Day of Two Suns

Acts of Erosion (2021) is a collaboration with Justin Deschamps created at the AIR Residency in Carrizozo, New Mexico. Through performance and photography, we sketch multiple chapters about the waves of Westward Expansion frozen in the desert.

For us, the birth of the Atomic Age is a more recent wave of Westward Expansionism, a wave of blinding, burning light. In the chapter The Day of Two Suns, we connect the nuclear history of the White Sands Missile Range and its echo in Hiroshima.

We performed rudimentary gestures evoking a detonation. Light becomes matter; matter becomes light. As a form of transfiguration, volcanic rocks cast double shadows, ash elevates into clouds, and trinitite blocks the sun. By freezing these gestures through photography, we mimic the strange temporality of the desert and suspend time.

Polly and the Old Glory at Carrizozo Elementary, 2020Digital Photograph

Blast Shadow, 2020Performative intervention documented in photography: imprinting a hand with ash l

Greeting Sign (Visit Our Missile Park!), 2020Digital photograph

The Day of Two Suns, 2020Performative and photographic intervention: relocated Malpais basalt, flash detonation in the White Sands National Park

Cloud Etched in Stone, 2020Performative intervention, ash dispersed in the Malpais volcanic field

Basalt Raining in a Gypsum Desert, 2020Performative intervention: relocating Malpais basalt to the White Sands National Park

Double Shadow, 2020Digital Photograph, performative intervention with volcanic rocks, White Sands National Park

Trinitite Blocking the Sun, 2020Digital photograph of trinitite (arkosic sand melted by the blast of the Trinity nuclear bomb test)

Two Waves, 2020 Performatic intervention documented in photography, volcanic rocks, flash