Bring creative experiences to 25 community members who can’t come to us. Donate today!
Effective January 1: Masks are Optional in VisArts’ Classrooms and Studios
I create speculative survival architecture, objects, and wearables to use as props in site-specific performances and installations. I document these works with lens-based media to address the pressing impacts of extreme weather, with a recent focus on the increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires.
In 2023, I began creating wildfire shelters as speculative survival architecture—installing them in areas impacted by historic wildfires and documenting the installations with still photography. The site-specific nature of my work helps connect it to present-day experience and highlights the devastating impact of extreme weather, which continues to alter our landscapes and threaten our communities.
Time is of the Essence presents an imagined reality in which the effects of wildfire are so severe that we’re forced to alter the spaces where we shelter, the clothes we wear, and the strategies we learn and practice to build resilience against its constant threat. The exhibition features a large speculative wildfire shelter, wearables, and a “Survival Architect” persona that I perform and self-document.
The site-specific installation and performances took place in rural Nova Scotia, Canada—where I was raised—to address the growing threat wildfires pose to the province, which in 2023 experienced its worst wildfire season in recorded history. I independently carry out all aspects of this work, including design, preparation, construction, installation, performance, and documentation.
To photograph sequences featuring myself as the “Survival Architect,” I use timed manual photography and work intentionally with natural light. The large wildfire shelter is not functional, but symbolic—a visual device that appears to offer protection from flame, heat, and smoke exposure. The material I use to create the shelter, as well as a selection of the wearables, is not readymade but a combination of materials and processes that replicate the surface texture of fire shelters used by wildland firefighters.
My intention is for this work to serve both as a warning and a possibility—a vision of a world where art and imagination are crucial tools for adaptation and survival.
Katie Kehoe creates speculative survival architecture, objects, and wearables for use in site-specific performances and installations, which she documents with lens-based media. Her work has been presented across the U.S. and Canada, with highlights including the Hirshhorn Museum (DC), the Contemporary Museum (MD), the Center for Maine Contemporary Art (ME), Arlington Arts Center’s inaugural Regional Biennial, Assembly (VA), the 7th Louisiana Biennial, a national juried exhibition at Louisiana Tech University (LA), and Meridian Center for Cultural Diplomacy’s Mother Earth exhibition (DC).
Kehoe is a member of Atlantika Collective, Cultivate Projects, and Ecoartspace. In May 2023, she participated in Santa Fe Art Institute’s international artist residency Changing Climate. She lives in Tallahassee, FL, where she is an Assistant Professor teaching sculpture and expanded media in the Department of Art at Florida State University. She completed her MFA at the Mount Royal School of Art, Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, MD.
OPENING CELEBRATION: FRIDAY, MAY 30 | 7-9 PM Enjoy new exhibitions, music, drinks, eats, and more! RSVP
GALLERY TOURS Let us be your guide! Schedule a free school field trip or group tour of our exhibitions. LEARN MORE
SHARE YOUR VISIT We love to see your photos! Tag us on Instagram @visartscenter or use #visarts
