Searchlight, Nevada-based duo Kim Garrison Means and Steve Radosevich seek to answer the question, “what is there even to protect out there?”
Mystery Ranch in southern Nevada sits at a crucial juncture, an outpost in the Mojave where natural springs once delivered a critical water source to all living things in the area known as Avi Kwa Ame in the Mojave language. Yet decades-long drought has fundamentally changed the landscape around Mystery Ranch, and the ranch’s run-off pool replaced the springs as a central watering hole, providing a new gathering point for a diversity of species people don’t tend to associate with the desert.
The ranch is the family home of Kim Garrison Means, who, with Steve Radosevich, forms the duo behind United Catalysts, an arts project designed to explore the connections between action, the environment, the wider community, and the self. Mystery Ranch has become the locus of their project Proof of Existence. Exasperated by the question, “What is there even to protect out there?” United Catalysts worked with community members to transform the run-off pool into a pond and riparian habitat, setting up motion-activated cameras to capture images of its visitors.
Through this documentation, Means and Radosevich started to see beautiful rhythms in the comings and goings of the animals: the ghostly image of a rabbit flees as a shadowy coyote approaches; a mouse balances on a branch as it moves toward the water; great horned owls take midnight baths.
Proof of Existence answers the question “What is there even to protect out there?” with more than just evidence of life, but images that are poetic and stirring—drawing the connections so crucial to conservation. As part of the Spirit of the Land initiative to protect Avi Kwa Ame, the project brings these surprising, endearing encounters with wildlife to the gallery, reminding us all that we are part of a fabric of life far more complex than we often acknowledge.
Searchlight, Nevada | unitedcatalystsart.com | mysteryranch.org | @unitedcatalysts | @searchlightmysteryranch
