This installation will deploy brightly colored marking flags—commonly used for construction, utility lines, or pesticide applications—into an intervention within the natural landscape of the South Mountain Reservation. Clusters and scattered groupings of flags will be installed along the walking path, appearing at first as if they might indicate something real and urgent—perhaps an underground danger, a planned disturbance, or a hidden toxicity.
Project Proposal
Though visually inviting, their cheerful colors fluttering festively in the breeze, these unmarked flags will offer no explanation. Their ambiguity is the point. The piece aims to live in that in-between space—where caution meets curiosity and ordinary materials take on new emotional weight through placement and repetition.
As walkers move through the forest, these bright pops of colors will beckon them forward. With each step, the walker’s perspective shifts, drawn by the flags. Typically, flags like these communicate an instruction to ‘keep off the grass,’ meaning ‘don’t walk here.’ The viewer’s natural impulse to avoid them may be countered by their interest. They will create moments of intrigue and hesitation, guiding walkers through the landscape in ways that might alter their usual pattern of movement.
The flags serve as a reminder that all landscapes—even those we think of as untouched or pristine—are already entangled with human systems, presence, and actions.
Underground Utility Color Code
(texas811.org)
Sketches
