Artist Sonja Hinrichsen examines urban and natural environments through exploration and research. Her work manifests in immersive video installations and, what she calls, interventions in nature. We talked about her large and ongoing participatory project, Snow Drawings. We discussed the intersection of place and human perception, especially as it relates to the American West. Sonja also had some great advice for living and sustaining a creative life.

This Snow Drawings piece took place in the Valley of Serre Chevalier – a skiing area in the French Alps. The piece was created over two days with the help of approximately 70 participants from the surrounding communities. The patterns wrap around a mountainside, stretching upward along a hiking trail/ski slope. Snow Drawings introduces an alternative winter outdoor experience – one that encourages participants to interact more deeply with nature. Walking circular patterns within these stunning landscapes, listening to the crunching sounds of ones own footsteps in the snow, as the weather changes light and mood through alternating sun, clouds, fog and snowfall, is a form of meditation. Snow Drawings are a symbiosis between immersive nature experience, meditation and collaborative art creation. Although beautiful and whimsical the changing weather conditions posed challenges for the documentation of the work. Unmanned mini-copters got disoriented in a sudden but dense waft of mist, and I photographed the work during rapidly changing light conditions – back and forth between bright sunshine and cloudy skies.

Snow Drawings at Catamount Lake, Colorado, 2013

We Are the Water - Snow Drawings, Colorado, 2014

Here are a few links to art organizations mentioned during our conversation:

Anderson Ranch Art Center (Colorado)
Kala Art Institute (Berkeley, CA)
The Compound Gallery and Studios (Oakland, CA)
Scrawl Center for Drawing (San Francisco, CA)

John Lane

Episode 26: Sonja Hinrichsen