Avalanche Safety by Casey Gardner - AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARD

$1,500.00
Everything is interconnected, knowing this is our only salvation. Steep, snowy slopes are loaded terrains of uncertainty. Hidden layers and changing variables make stability difficult to predict. Stability depends on the cohesion between one particle to another and one layer to another. If the force of gravity outweighs cohesion, a slide is inevitable.

In an avalanche climbers can find themselves in a path of destruction triggered by their own behavior. This book explores how we navigate real and existential risks and what inspires us into excursions of uncertainty.

The story begins in the precarious 1930s, high in the Rockies. Two young mountaineers, Stella and Felix, push the edges of their vulnerability on rock and snow, discovering their interdependence with the natural elements.  

The story is woven in wilderness. Narrative layers investigate historical landscapes, natural forces and elemental processes in snowflake crystallography, geological metamorphosis and avalanche dynamics. Nature’s perpetual change and infinite interconnections are touchstones of human desire.

Artist Bio

Casey Gardner is a printmaker and book artist living in Berkeley, California. She writes, draws, prints and binds her own limited edition, letterpress-printed artist books with Set in Motion Press. Her multilayered narratives explore the complex relationship between humans and nature. Through stories and graphics she investigates the intersection of scientific understanding and human meaning. She has a BS in Journalism from UC Boulder and a BFA in Graphic Design and Printmaking from California College of the Arts. Her award-winning work is collected nationally and internationally, including in special collections of Yale, MIT, Harvard, and the Library of Congress.