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Jan Estep

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Beneath the surface

[2009] Beneath the surface (of language), Silver Mountain Island Byway, Wendover, Utah, USA is a performative, site-specific map/text/photo project featuring the 54-mile backcountry Silver Island Mountain Byway, a BLM-managed route near the Bonneville Speedway just outside of Wendover, Utah. The mountains rise up like an archipelago in the middle of the Great Salt Lake Desert, surrounded on all sides by salt and mud flats. Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels (1976) are 45 miles north and Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty (1970) 220 miles east. In April 2009 I spent two weeks in Wendover at CLUI’s residency unit researching, photographing, and writing about the area. The resulting essay, written in five parts, is buried along the byway. My dog and I made the trip to bury the texts during a long, focused day of driving, exploring, and digging. Afterwards a topographical map was produced to mark the locations.

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