WILDLAND: Ethan Turpin's 
Collaborations on Fire and Water

Image of people walking into three-screen projection showing images of wildfire and brush.



 

January 9 - March 22, 2025
Opening Reception: January 9, 4-6pm

Ethan Turpin's works are grounded in the natural cycles of wildfire, devastation, and recovery and regrowth. Turpin is a multi-media artist and fireline-trained, press-credentialed photographer. His collaborations include other artists and scientists at the UCSB Bren School, and works with the Santa Barbara County Fire Safe Council to provide educational programming about wildfires and our local landscape.

Turpin brings artists, scientists and educators directly to communities to create powerful experiences that broaden perspectives and deepen awareness of underlying natural forces where we live in Southern California. Turpin’s personal artistic practice has explored ways of perceiving climate change, leading to 10 years of collaborations and the founding of The Burn Cycle Project, which focuses on the complex relationships between fire, water, and ourselves. WILDLAND will engage with the paradoxical entanglements of beauty and risk present in the exhibit’s location, the Westmont College campus. Using a wide range of immersive and participatory media, Turpin and his collaborators will share modes of orientation toward wonder and resilience within a mighty landscape.

 

Green clickable button that reads "Exhibition Sponsorship - Join Friends of Wildland."

 

 

WILDLAND EVENTS

 

Nighttime image of an oak tree with projected red embers, so it appears to be glowing with fire.

Ember Trees

When: Thursday, February 20, 2025 at 6pm
Where: Grove of Stone Pines in the Westmont College Formal Gardens

Join us for a special, site-specific installation event featuring glowing ember trees, testimonials from firefighters and community members, a poetry reading by former Santa Barbara Poet Laureate Paul Willis, and a special musical piece by Westmont Director of Choral Activities Daniel Gee.

The installation is created by Ethan Turpin and Jonathan PJ Smith of The Environment Makers. Using multiple video projectors and mapped footage of glowing embers, Turpin and Smith make trees appear as though glowing with fire from within. The installation site will be a grove of pine trees scarred from the 2008 Tea Fire, located east of the Museum by the Dining Commons.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
People sitting at outdoor tables with food trucks, crafts, and activities.

Family Day

When: Saturday, March 1, 2025 from 10am-3pm
Where: Adams Center, Westmont College

A free, all-ages event for families, students, and the entire community to experience the WILDLAND exhibition. Visit the Museum to see interactive and immersive video installations of wildfire and water systems, then make your way over to the Adams Center to create sustainable arts-and-crafts projects. Visit educational workshops and tables from local organizations like the Museum of Natural History and the Santa Barbara County Fire Safe Council, see the inside of a fire truck and talk with firefighters; relax by watching a nature documentary in Porter Theatre, then grab a bite to eat from our community BBQ. There's something for everyone! If you'd like to donate and help support this community event, we welcome you as a Friend of Wildland here: https://westmont.tfaforms.net/4652113

 

 

 

PROGRAMMING

Stay tuned for these upcoming events!

 

Ethan Turpin and Naomi Tague standing in "Burn Cave" smiling.

Artist & Collaborator Talk

When: January 30, 2025 at 5:30pm
Where: Adams Classroom 216, Westmont College

Ethan Turpin and Naomi Tague will present a lecture on their collaborations for WILDLAND. Naomi Tague is a researcher and professor of ecology at the University of California, Santa Barbara's Bren School of Environmental Science & Management. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The artist setting up a special camera in a dry and burnt landscape.

Arroyo Hondo Field Trip

When: Date TBD; mid-February
Where: Arroyo Hondo Preserve (near Goleta)

Ethan Turpin will lead students and interested community members on a field trip to the Arroyo Hondo Preserve, where he filmed time-lapse videos of wildfire and recovery for the WILDLAND exhibition. The area was hit by the 2021 Alisal Fire. Learn more about the Preserve here: https://www.sblandtrust.org/land/arroyo-hondo-preserve/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photograph of grassy green trail with trees.

Trail Walk

When: Date TBD; mid-March
Where: Las Barrancas/Willis Trail, Westmont College

Westmont Biology professor Laura Drake Schultheis will lead a trail walk along the Las Barrancas trail, also known as the Paul J. Willis trail after the beloved Westmont professor who helped restore the path. Schultheis is working with other partners and volunteers to restore the live oak population and remove invasive eucalyptus, which will help restore the native ecology and slow the spread of future wildfires. Learn more about the trail and the species that call it home: https://www.westmontbiodiversity.com/trail