You can visit a place many times and think you are familiar with it. You become more acquainted with the sights, sounds, smells, and spirit of a place the more time you spend there. There is a comfort and familiarity when we think of these places, places that we have been visiting since we were young. That familiarity changes when you adjust the lens through which you are viewing and experiencing this once comfortable place. This is the experience I had when we teamed up with Yellowstone Forever last semester to research and address unique challenges within the park. With each new visit to the park, I was noticing things that I hadn’t before, unique subtleties, vast landscapes, and an interesting relationship between park visitors and the wildlife that calls it home. Looking at the park with these design problems and solutions in mind, I was able to observe my experience with fresh eyes. This perspective allowed me to reevaluate my previous understanding and relationship to this space and develop a new curiosity for it. Yellowstone is known for drawing visitors in with its promises of grand wildlife and picturesque landscapes, a land full of adventure and curiosity. Yellowstone’s mysterious qualities are what initially drove people to this area, the sights astounding them, moving them spiritually and emotionally. Today, Yellowstone has become an attraction, its once unique systems and sights being cheapened by visitor’s lack of respect and understanding. How do we restore visitor’s curiosity, making their visit to the park more of a sacred observation like it was intended to be? We cannot easily change the high volume of visitors that the park experiences every year, but we can influence the lens through which they see this sacred space. With this idea in mind, I focused my efforts of the semester towards building a system that utilized the arts as a new approach to observing and learning about the park. Through this experience, I gained a new appreciation for these wild places, the power they have to draw in millions of people, the impact they leave on us, and the sacred pull that can help build and influence broader themes in our everyday lives.
See Kirtly’s project here.