The Bunker Project was a temporary projection and sound installation in a Cold War era bunker located just outside of Green River, Utah. The bunker was built with 12 x 12 wooden beams that were stacked and buried into the side of a hill. The interior space of the bunker is a long, dark corridor 9 feet wide and 100 feet long. The audience was asked to arrive in time to watch the sun set from the top of the bunker. At twilight, visitors were escorted into the bunker in small groups at 4 minute intervals. The tunnel was dimly lit by the projection and intermittent candlelight and filled with sound.
This project was done as part of a Frontier Fellowship with Epicenter.
Photos by Maria Sykes and Lisa Ward
The projection inside the bunker was a collage of images from missile test sites in the american southwest and its Russian equivalent in atomic proving grounds, Kazakhstan. The majority of the photographs of the Nevada Tests Sites were taken by Richard Misrach, who brought awareness to the self-inflicted ecocide committed during the Cold War.
The sound for this piece is a compilation of an ancient Russian choral piece (Retche Gospod Gospodevi Moyemu, performed by Chorovaya Akademia and Alexander Sedov) and recordings made by the artist of rocket launches during the 10th Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC) in Green River, Utah.