Amid the recent years of global calamities, unprecedented wildfires ravaged multiple continents. The fires grow ever larger, more destructive, and more ubiquitous as our changing climate plunges us further into the Pyrocene. The scale of the devastation to the collective landscape is nearly unfathomable, yet small moments of optimism can be found in elemental ecological reflexes. These fires have motivated similar bursts of creative response from human cultural networks as well, inspiring—perhaps necessitating—new ways to conceive of ourselves in relation to our landscapes.

This project studies representations of ‘landscapes after the fire’ across cultures, with a focus on the devastation and renewal brought about by fire. These depictions reveal a precarious balance between nihilism and optimism about the future: horror juxtaposed with beauty; mundane objects gaining spiritual significance in the scorched landscape. Can cultural and ecological identity be transplanted after the fires, and if so, what remains? In these moments of heightened urgency, can representations of possible futures suggest a path for future reimagination, resilience, and inhabitation?

Drawing across disciplines, the collected depictions of ‘landscapes after the fire,’ search for ways in which these events provoke new representations of human relationships to the landscape and built environment.