Look Listen Land is a project by M. Michelle Illuminato + Michelle Swinehart. It emerged from our Wildfire + Water: Artists and Scientists Adapting to Change residency at Playa in Summer Lake.
From 2025 – 2026 we were inspired by the complexity, beauty, and people who live, use, and work in Lake County. We were enriched by the relationships we formed with people but also became aware of the importance of non-humans, plants, animals and the unfolding sense of time in this place. At the same time we came face to face with some of the hardships and challenges created by the ongoing wildfires and drought.
We slowed down and began to look and listen, collecting what resonated from conversations, experiences, and research that helped to reveal further complexities and budding adaptations. We began to call those, ‘snippets’ and were inspired by the entangled understory that they brought to light. This was the beginning point for the 21 signs that we created and installed in the lowlands, uplands, ranch land and wetlands in Lake County Oregon.
The signs vary greatly – wooden signs, hand-painted signs, laminated paper, postcards and even a few that might surprise. Some signs look like they’ve been there for millions of years, like a ceramic rock that helps to tell the long history of the lake at the edge of the Albert Rim. Others pop-up in unexpected places, like under your beer at the local Paisley Saloon in Paisley, along the highway, or in the Summer Lakes Hot Springs office and gift shop.
