Desert Walk Series
Photo & video // Instagram: @january_yoon_cho_art
• Make a Tax-deductible DONATION to The Walk Project: The Walk Project is a fiscally sponsored project of New York Foundation for the Arts, a 501(c)(3), tax-exempt organization.
The Walk Project explores the connection with our environments. The project features America’s diverse desert landscapes with superimposed digital drawings of various biological life forms over my walk performances. Years in the making, the project captured numerous walks from Arizona, California, Nevada, and New Mexico. The edited scenes turned into prints with drawings and a video with overlaid animated drawings. The Desert Walk is the first installment of The Walk Project. The Desert Walk Series Is the first installment of The Walk Project. It consists of photographic prints and a video with overlaid graphics.
I take photographs and videos of myself walking in different locations with an assistant who can press the shutter after I set up the camera composition. After editing photographs and videos, drawings of biological life forms are created to develop a narrative. The drawings of plant cells, pollen, reproductive organs, embryos, and skeletons tell a story of interconnection with the earth cycle of life and the co-existence of humankind with our surroundings. The representational and imaginative drawings echo the scientific evidence and explore whimsical imagination. The simplicity of the white silhouettes with line drawings of suggestive details become a seed and potentiality for a new tale.
My personal journey from a difficult pregnancy to motherhood encourages me to look closer at the relationship between the biological life forms and their habitats. The Walk Project encapsulates beauty, destruction, and preservation of the land we live in.
The Desert Walk Video
– Total duration: 5 min | Audio: Bass speaker highly recommended for the best viewing experience. May not deliver the lower pitch sounds without a bass speaker. | Walk performance & video by January Yoon Cho, Music by Faten Kanaan
Scenes in the order of appearance in The Desert Walk Video
1. Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, Death Valley, California: Human survival with extinct and endangered animals.
2. Coal power plant of Navajo Generating Station, Navajo Nation, Arizona: Walking with the human fetus and skeletons.
3. Zabriskie Point, Death Valley, California: Disappearance of the Monarch Butterflies.
4. Desert storm, Death Valley, California: A birth of a human.
5. Salt flat, Death Valley, California: Hexagons found in nature.
6. Bonnie Claire, Nevada: Pollen and seeds floating.
7. Artist’s Palette, Death Valley, California: Dreaming of fossils.
8. Devil’s Golf Course, Death Valley, California: Interconnection with human and animals.
9. Three Rivers Petroglyph, New Mexico: animals worshipping the sun gods.
10. Ubehebe Crater, Death Valley, California.
11. Besti-Wilderness, New Mexico: Fungi and chicken embryos as the descendants of dinosaurs that references the natural rock formation of the landscapes.
12. White Sands National Monument, New Mexico: Cacti and vulva succulent plants referencing the male and female coexistence for creating a new life.
13. Monument Valley, Arizona: Plant seed embryos moving through a female reproductive organ and spreading out to the sacred land.
14. Radio antennas of the astronomical radio observatories in The Very Large Array, New Mexico: Animal and human embryos developing in stages.
15. Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, California.
16.Zabriskie Point, California.
17. Sedona, Arizona.
18. Antelope Canyon, Arizona.
19. Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, New Mexico.
20. Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico.
21. Wildrose Charcoal Kilns, Death Valley, California.
22. Salt Flats, Death Valley, California.
23. Artists Palette, Death Valley, California.
24. White Sands National Monument, New Mexico.
25. Golden Canyon, Death Valley, California.
26. The Very Large Array, New Mexico.
Large Prints: Walk performance with drawings | Limited editions of 3 | 24″ x 36″ | Archival pigment inkjet print
- “Where Has the Dodo Gone?”, Archival Pigment Inkjet Print, 36″x24″, Ed. of 3 | Addresses climate change by depicting our survival in the barren sand dunes with drawings of extinct, endangered animals and human fetus over the photograph taken in Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, California.
- “The Life Force of Pollen as the Wind Blows”, Archival Pigment Inkjet Print, 36″x24″, Ed. of 3 | Drawings of plant seeds and pollen over the artists walk performance on a dried lake of Bonnie Claire, Nevada.
- “Desert Coal Power Plant”, Archival Pigment Inkjet Print, 36″x24″, Ed. of 3 | Drawings of skeletons and a human embryo over a coal power plant in the land of Navajo Nation where some natives deliberately choose not to use electricity in order to protect the land. Photo of the artist’s walk performance near Antelope Canyon, Arizona.
- “Desolate Female”, Archival Pigment Inkjet Print, 36″x24″, Ed. of 3 | Drawings of succulent plants over the image of the artist walking on white sand dunes. Photo taken in White Sands National Monument, New Mexico.
- “Desolate Male”, Archival Pigment Inkjet Print, 36″x24″, Ed. of 3 | Drawings of succulent plants over the image of the artist’s walk performance in White Sands National Monument, New Mexico.
- “The Journey of Seeds Into the Sacred Monument Valley”, Archival Pigment Inkjet Print, 36″x24″, Ed. of 3 | Drawings of plant seed embryos and a female reproductive organ over the artist’s walk performance in the sacred land, Navajo Nation, Arizona.
- “Inception of the Future”, Archival Pigment Inkjet Print, 36″x24″, Ed. of 3 | Drawings of animal and human embryos over the artist’s walk performance in front of the radio antennas of the astronomical radio observatories, The Very Large Array, New Mexico.
- “Remains of the Past”, Archival Pigment Inkjet Print, 36″x24″, Ed. of 3 | Drawings of fossils over the artist’s walk performance through the barren Golden Canyon, Death Valley, California.
- “We Have Traveled Afar”, Archival Pigment Inkjet Print, 36″x24″, Ed. of 3 | Drawings of elongated umbilical cord over the artist’s walk performance during a desert storm in Death Valley. The drawing is based on the photograph of her son’s birth. Photo taken in Death Valley, California.
- “Salt Flat and Hexagons”, Archival Pigment Inkjet Print, 36″x24″, Ed. of 3 | Drawings of hexagons from nature – snowflakes, turtles, poppy seeds and a beehive over the artist’s walk performance on a salt flat with naturally formed hexagons in Death Valley, California.
- “Once Upon a Time Eggs”, Archival Pigment Inkjet Print, 36″x24″, Ed. of 3 | Drawings of chicken embryos over the artist’s walk performance in the eroded land formation in Bisti Wilderness, New Mexico.
- “The Metamorphosis on Zabriskie Point”, Archival Pigment Inkjet Print, 36″x24″, Ed. of 3 | Drawings of a monarch butterfly in different stages of life with milkweed plants and seeds over the artist’s walk performance in the badlands of Zabriskie Point, Death Valley, California.
- “Devil’s Golf Course”, Archival Pigment Inkjet Print, 36″x24″, Ed. of 3 | Drawings of water plants, eggs, and human embryos over the artist’s walk performance on a salt formation in The Devil’s Golf Course, Death Valley, California.
- “Fungi Field”, Archival Pigment Inkjet Print, 36″x24″, Ed. of 3 | Drawings of fungi over the artist’s walk performance on a rock formation in Bisti Wilderness, New Mexico.
Small Prints: Photographs of walk performances | Limited editions of 10 | 11″ x 14″ | Archival pigment inkjet print
- Desert Walks in the Salt Flat
- Desert Walks and the Coal Power Plant
- Desert Walks in Zabriskie Point
- Desert Walks in Playa
- Desert Walks in the Monument Valley
- Desert Walks in Artist’s Palette
• The Walk Project is a fiscally sponsored project of New York Foundation for the Arts, a 501(c)(3), tax-exempt organization.
Click here to make a tax-deductible donation to support The Walk Project.
• Funding for The Walk Project has been made possible in part by the Puffin Foundation and Barbara Deming Memorial Funds.
Water Walk Series
The Water Walk Series is currently a work in progress. The finished location photo/video shootings include migrating birds in Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico; dead trees in Driftwood Beach, Jekyll Island, GA; calcium carbonate deposit formation in Mono Lake, CA; toxic dust area of Salton Sea, CA; and the Red beads of the fruits in Cranberry Bog, Halifax, Massachusetts.