Installation with 12 Camera Obscura projections and text,
Headlands Center for the Arts

The installation "Room for Endangered Species" came from the experience of tension between nature and culture in the San Francisco Headlands, but stands as a symbolic gesture for any place.

It was the close proximity of the endless urban sprawl to the "park" as nature sanctuary and how easily I could move from one to the other which influenced my work while I was there. Nature seemed well almost reclaiming the ruins of civilization, but when I came across a list of Endangered Species I was struck by the incredible amount of names on it.

I decided to make a piece about this with an installation which would embrace the landscape, bring it in to the empty architecture of the building so that they become part of each other and both could be contemplated in the same space.
Through twelve Camera Obscura projections, which fell on a transparent list of all Endangered Species, one was surrounded inside the room with an upside down outside. The space created mirrored the dichotomy of the beauty outside and the terror inside.
Lukas Felzmann