VisArts is pleased to present Katie Kehoe: “Time Is of the Essence,” a new exhibition featuring speculative survival architecture, wearables and lens-based media that imagines how we might adapt to an increasingly wildfire-prone world. Rooted in site-specific installation and performance, Kehoe’s work envisions a future where adaptation is essential—and art is a survival strategy. The exhibit will be on view from May 16 to July 13 in the Gibbs Street Gallery. An opening celebration will be held May 30 from 7 to 9 p.m.

Exhibition Statement

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 landscapes and threaten communities.

“Time Is of the Essence” presents an imagined reality in which the effects of wildfire are so severe that we are 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 carry out all aspects of this work independently, 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.

About the Artist

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 United States and Canada, with highlights including the Hirshhorn Museum (Washington, D.C.); the Contemporary Museum (Maryland); the Center for Maine Contemporary Art; Arlington Arts Center’s inaugural Regional Biennial, Assembly (Virginia); the 7th Louisiana Biennial, a national juried exhibition at Louisiana Tech University; and the Meridian Center for Cultural Diplomacy’s “Mother Earth” exhibition (Washington, D.C.).

Kehoe is a member of Atlantika Collective, Cultivate Projects and Ecoartspace. In May 2023, she participated in the Santa Fe Art Institute’s international artist residency, Changing Climate. She lives in Tallahassee, Florida, where she is an assistant professor teaching sculpture and expanded media in the Department of Art at Florida State University. She earned her Master of Fine Arts from the Mount Royal School of Art at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.