Such a wonderful publication! This interview allowed me to expand upon and update many of the ideas I talked about in my interview with the LA Times.
Climate Grief and Embracing Beautiful Confusion: Daniela Molnar Interviewed
Category Archives: Signal Fire
Interview with Variable West
December 10th, 2020
Profile in the Los Angeles Times
January 11th, 2020
Thank you to the wonderful writer Julia Rosen and photographer Genaro Molina for this generous, thoughtful article on my New Earth series and on the role of art and artists in sociopolitical/cultural change.
Julia begins: “It had been a long day and Daniela Molnar’s mind was wandering when she saw the shape. The shape of what was already lost; the shape of something new that had just come into being.
Little did she know, it was a shape that would expose a profound feeling of grief within her — and then help her process it. …”
Read the rest here: https://www.latimes.com/la-sci-col1-climate-change-art-2019-story.html
Guiding Signal Fire’s Outpost Residency
August 20th, 2018
It was an honor and a thrill to spend two weeks with fellow guide Wendy Given and 8 wonderful artist residents exploring and learning about the mighty Loowit.
Huge thanks to the Mount Saint Helens Institute for inviting us and to everyone who supports Signal Fire‘s work.
Borderlander’s Outfitter
January 14th, 2015
I was honored to participate in the creation of Abigail Anne Newbold‘s collaborative installation, Borderlander’s Outfitter at PNCA’s Feldman Gallery. As a representative of Signal Fire, I led workshops with the graduate students who created objects for the exhibition. They were an inspiring and creative bunch, and the installation turned out impressively.
Leaf Litter #4!
July 17th, 2014
After a wonderful release party for Leaf Litter #4, the new issue is now available at Reading Frenzy and Powells in Portland, as well as in several libraries and museum libraries. If you’d like a copy, please email me.
Documentation in the Field at the Henry
June 17th, 2014
Join Lisa Schomburg and I on June 28 in Seattle’s Discovery Park for an event in conjunction with the Summer Field Studies show at the Henry Gallery.
Head out into the urban wilds of Discovery Park with Portland based artists Daniela Molnar and Lisa Schonberg for a multimedia documentation workshop. Discover variable forms of observation and documentation from drawing and note taking to field recording and music composition. Materials for documentation will be provided. See you in the field!
Art + Ecology Unite
January 14th, 2014
I’ll be helping lead this panel discussion and happy hour sponsored by PICA with Portland Ecologists Unite.
http://pica.org/event/art-
https://www.facebook.com/
January 16, 2013
5:30-7:30 PM
PICA (415 SW 10th Ave, Suite 300)
FREE
Wine and refreshments will be served
This month, PICA plays host to Art + Ecology Unite, part of the monthly conversations series, EcoUnite, for those who like to discuss today’s pressing issues with drinks in hand! ART + ECOLOGY UNITE is a program of Portland Ecologists Unite.
Join us at PICA for this month’s EcoUnite, featuring a brief overview of some art projects concerned with land and the environment, followed by a panel discussion with Portland-based artists Adam Kuby, Linda K. Johnson, and Stephen Hayes, who will discuss environmentally-aware work of their own. Following the panel, stay for more drinks and casual break-out sessions with other artists, ecologists, and the general public.
Some of the overlaps we might consider throughout the evening include: how ecology acts as a soft curation of the environment; visual identification and rendering; the aesthetics of ecology; ecology as a spontaneous and imaginative practice; and the intersection of art, ecology, and activism.
Ecopoetics conference
March 5th, 2013
Just spent an amazing (sunny!) weekend in Berkeley with an array of profoundly smart and inspiring people.
Among the many ideas floating around in my head as a result of the brilliant discussions and presentations is a new fascination with the radically non-anthropocentric ideas of Object Oriented Ontology. Thanks to Allison Cobb, Kaia Sand, Jen Coleman and Jen Hofer for their engaging, beautiful, emotionally charged presentation of these ideas.
Thanks, also to Ross Gay and Patrick Rosal for their presentation/performance on remix and reuse in poetry and its ability to disrupt mythologies of individual genius. These late Romantic notions are damaging not only to the individual, but are tied to a capitalist, anthropocentric world view in which the individual is the center of the earth. Embracing the polyvocality of remix can disrupt these “great person narratives,” increasing the artist’s contact with the fertile edge where time and ideas rub against each other, creating new ideas. Our ideas are not, and never were, our own.
The conference and the recent release of Leaf Litter #3, which contains some of my poems, have made me think that it really is time to publish some of my written work, starting with this site. I’m working on making that happen soon…
After the conference, I trekked up to the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden and caught sight of this magnolia, about to burst into bloom.
Signal Fire Summer 2012
May 16th, 2012
Photo by Sarah Meadows
Signal Fire is heading into another inspiring, busy summer, and we’ve been hard at work with preparations. We had a huge numer of truly impressive applicants this year for the Outpost residency and the Overture backpacking trip.
I’ll be co-leading the Overture hike again this year with the fantastic Ryan Pierce. This year’s trip will have a particular emphasis on the intersection of creative writing and visual art. Visiting artists include Hayley Barker, a painter whose recent works draw from the diaries of Opal Whiteley, acclaimed writer Peter Rock, and Laura Gibson, a singer-songwriter whose finely wrought lyrics revel in the complexity of the natural world.
Here’s a video by Willow McCormick, who participated in last year’s adventure:
Can’t wait to get out into the woods!