Sophia Hatzikos - 2021 Artist In Residence
Sophia Hatzikos was ACE’s 2021 Artist in Residence. She is a multidisciplinary artist that specializes in sculpture, textiles, and photography. Read all about her here and about our program here.
An Artist Reflects on their time in Alta
When I arrive in a new place, I am often drawn to the small details. But when I arrived in Alta, I only zoomed out. All the while, the mountains drew me in. I stood there at the bottom looking up and down Little Cottonwood Canyon, I observed how the mountains carved out Alta, a truly picturesque place. The summer was a unique time to visit Alta, a place that most people visit in the winter due to its impressive slopes and ski community. Visiting in the summer gave me the opportunity to see the natural landscape of Alta come out and play! The wildflowers, trees, and rocks created a landscape composed of a diverse palette of colors, shapes, and textures. Going on daily hikes allowed me to explore the ever-changing landscape. I would turn around a bend in a trail and see a whole different mountain peak, its edges lined by the bright blue sky behind it.
On my first morning in Alta, I walked from Snowpine Lodge underneath the chairlift down to the main parking lot. I was trying to get my bearings to understand what was around me. I was immediately drawn to these massive steel structures that loomed over me in the parking lot. The shadows in the early sunlight made them larger than life. Their scale and sculptural form blew me away. I started to click away on my camera, capturing them from a variety of angles. I was amazed by the geometry, symmetry and power these massive metal objects possessed. I spoke to two men who were building more of them, and I learned they were built for avalanche control. They were being built in the parking lot and later they would be placed up high on the mountains to provide further safety from avalanches.
This led me to think about the amount of human involvement that it takes to secure a mountain and make it winter ready. The idyllic ski spot that Alta is would not be the same if the terrain was left alone without intervention. What I came to observe over the week was a series of tasks, construction, planning, and conservation for Alta’s “on season”when the snow falls. All the mechanisms that were being put into place were for snow. And not just for snow, but to allow people to use snow for recreational use. I focused on exploring this theme: summer preservation for a successful winter season. I was contemplating the gears behind a pocket watch. I recognized the energy required to control a natural landscape that has stood there for eons but only recently used for human entertainment.
I began to notice and appreciate how the natural landscape wanted to act.
I noticed the terrain sliding down, creating lines in the dirt.
I noticed how the variety of rocks hit the bottom of my shoe or how sweeps of dust stirred across open areas.
These observations led me to create work that reflected the lack of control we have over natural spaces. Slip Slide Safe, 2021 (below) was made from straw erosion netting for ski slopes seen rolled up above. The pieces encapsulate humans’ paradoxical attempts to control natural occurrences that are naturally-occuring, and therefore uncontrollable. The material I used can be seen in the water color sketch above. The yellow areas are where the straw netting has been laid down and the brown is where it still needs to be put. The rectangular shapes fill up space in a landscape that is not naturally rigidly geometric. The netting is laid over redefined pathways to ensure more secure ground coverage. I choose the materiality of the netting to draw attention to the materials we use to create a controlled space. The form it takes alludes to the possibility of an avalanche, the natural tendency to flow down into one large pile. The size, scale, and high hanging overhead approach shows the amount of energy, materials, and labor it takes to control.
Just as control was exercised on the landscapes in Alta. I started to think about the layers of history that brought this landscape together. The mountains came together from different sediments creating a variety of rock types. Alta first started off as a mining town - this caused deforested land and contaminated natural water sources. When mining for silver became financially inviable, Alta turned into a skiing community. After speaking with local residents, I became aware of the fast growth that Alta has seen and the continued interest from outsiders and visitors. I began to think about how these crowds demanded control. In many ways, the crowds and control act in a flywheel: crowds require control, control allows for more crowds, more crowds require more control, and so on. I wanted to portray this compounding effect in my work. As I brainstormed what materials to use, I realized the mountains themselves echoed the flywheel’s compounding effect. All these different mountains were made of different layers of sediment, man-made interventionist structures like those in the parking lot, and more layers of sediment. In Superficial Control, 2021 (seen below), I layered materials used to control mountain sediment on top of different rock types that I found while walking around Alta.
The last piece I completed exposed the opposite of composition: decomposition. While walking, I came across a porcupine on the side of the road that had long since passed. Its bones and needles were the only elements left. You can see the carcass on the side of the road way above. I wanted to create the piece to showcase the porcupine quills’ natural cycle of life and visual interest. As I searched for a material to combine with these quills, I struggled to find one that felt right. But after walking around the Gold Miners Daughter and the Alta Lift area, I started to find pieces of tar that were loose from the pavement. I assume from time passing. These pieces of tar had a sense of natural flow and an elasticity to them. The porcupine needles easily fit into the pieces of tar. I started to arrange them on a wall. The work titled Road Kill, 2021 showcases decomposition versus composition. Uniquely, though, both that composition and decomposition are very much influenced by the same force: human intervention.
My time in Alta was amazing. I had the opportunity to go to Alta Community Enrichment events, outdoor yoga, theatrical performances, and a drive in movie. I had the opportunity to collaborate for an afternoon with the Alta one room schoolhouse. I had the chance to stay and be hosted by the Snowpine Lodge, Goldminer's Daughter Lodge and the Alta community. I am excited to take the inspiration I observed in Alta and begin to work on it as seen in this body of work. I hope to continue to build upon these themes of composition, decomposition, community, and collaboration in the year to come.