The Black Rock Glacier (BRG) is a large scale structural & environmental installation that invites participants to journey within, to explore their personal give and take relationship with the extraordinary natural world, and it’s limited resources; asks how we each actually contribute in destroying or caring for the environment, and what we’re really willing to do about it; and provides opportunity for contemplation on cause & effect, constant change and impermanence. We will attempt to accomplish this by recreating one of the most quickly vanishing wonders of the natural world, a glacier — and build it (juxtaposed in a hot barren desert climate which was once a massive lake) out of 30,000 to 40,000 used plastic water bottles — representing human consumption — which are made from petroleum, another vanishing natural resource that in the hands of humanity, has become the largest root source of pollution, division and human suffering in the world.

The bottles are attached to a 44′ diameter, 25′ high skeletal hexagonal structure (that mimics the molecular structure of ice & water), and has six ‘Luminous Pillars’ that reach 40′ into the sky. Inside, a passively cooled grotto oasis awaits, where cold ice water drips from water bottle stalagmites from which participants may fill their personal water bottles and camelbaks. As the week progresses, the entire structure will slowly disappear — a ‘virtual meltdown’ - until only a single bottle remains, mounted on a pedestal, and labeled: “BLACK ROCK GLACIER - Bottled at the source“.

This project is intended to provoke contemplations and raise questions around the relationship between humanity and the rest of the natural world. Exploring the uniquely human cycle where a basic need grows into desire — desire becomes greed — greed leads to excessive gluttony, then scarcity or depletion… which returns it to a basic need.

YOU ARE WELCOME TO LEAVE COMMENTS, QUESTIONS or DISCUSSIONS HERE

YOU CAN ALSO JOIN US ON TRIBE: http://tribes.tribe.net/blackrockglacier