Incendiary Traces is a conceptually driven, collectively generated art and research project that explores the political facets of representing landscape. Since 2012, Incendiary Traces has produced plein air drawing surveys at actively policed borders, military training grounds, surveillance headquarters and other contested landscapes, starting in Southern California and expanding beyond. Through these on-site actions, research, and public scholarship, the project investigates the ways in which authoritative technological representations of conflict zones fall short of physical experience on the ground. The project has included surveys of the US-Mexico border (broadly defined); the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps base desert training simulation cities; the C4i4 police surveillance hub in Mexico City (now C5); the EU Border Protection Agency headquarters in Warsaw; and the Greek Coast Guard in Athens; among many others. Since its beginning, Incendiary Traces has chronicled the project, related images, and research through various publications, including Los Angeles’ KCET TV program Artbound, Places Journal, and Mexico City's Registromx.
Landscapes - the spaces we live in - are framed pictorially. These images produce compelling narratives and wield political power. Artists, explorers, speculators, even military strategists have used landscape imagery to voice and define our relationship to national identity, security and war. Exercising poetic, polyvocal strategies, the aim of Incendiary Traces is to critically reflect upon the totalizing technological and data-based perspectives of territory that underwrite visceral government aggression.
The project was conceived by Hillary Mushkin in 2011. For more information or to get involved, email us at incendiarytraces at gmail.com.
"No Trespassing: A Survey of Environmental Art," Artbound: Season 9, KCET TV, Los Angeles, 10 April, 2018
What is Incendiary Traces?
May 1, 2012 . Hillary Mushkin
This inaugural essay was originally published in 2012. It outlines how Hillary Mushkin first conceived of the project after watching CNN footage of the 1991 US bombing of Baghdad, which led to a series of watercolors blurring the distinction between the Middle Eastern city and Mushkin's hometown, Los Angeles. Incendiary Traces was initially created to continue this exploration of the political act of representing the Southern California landscape through a series of drawing events in militarized locations across the region.
PRESS
"Staying Close to the Land With Plein Air Painting”, AX Mina, Hyperallergic, September 18, 2023
”Plein Air Is a Sobering Reminder of Human Impact on the Environment”, Thao Votang, Hyperallergic, August 29, 2022
"Audio Slideshow: Artists Contemplate a Border They Never Knew Existed,” Carren Jao, Artbound, KCET, November 12, 2019
"Visions of California That Don’t Begin or End at the Border Wall,” Abe Ahn, Hyperallergic, October 25, 2019
"Eine Grenze hat Tyrannenmacht," Von Jochen Stöckmann, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, 26 August, 2017
"Active Duty: A New Exhibition Embeds Artists in Military Landscapes," Mimi Ziegler, Landscape Architecture, April 2017
"Tracing the Incendiary with Hillary Mushkin," L.A. Forum for Architecture and Urban Design, 20 February, 2017
"Artists Unite for 'Draw-in' Events, Draw Attention to Sites of Conflict," Liz Ohenesian, Artbound, KCET, 31 January, 2017
"America Deserta," Artbound: Season 5, KCET TV, Los Angeles, 2014