Peace is the only shelter, Desert X, Coachella Valley 2019
3 bus shelters, site-specific installation, footprint: 48 x 69 inches each
Roof, side mesh and seating painted matte black and yellow, stencil fallout shelter logo
6 advertising kiosks: 68 1/4 x 47 1/4 inches each, Duratrans mounted on 1/4 inch Lexon
8 map cases: 28 x 26 inches each, light jet prints mounted on 1/8 inch Lexon
All shelters have solar panels
PEACE IS THE ONLY SHELTER, 2019
Mary Kelly’s site-specific project, curated by Matthew Schum for the Desert X Biennial, returns to the Cold War intervention of Women Strike for Peace, a group formed in 1961 to protest against nuclear weapons testing in the Mojave Desert. WSP set a precedent for action-oriented, second-wave feminists and peace activists of the present such as Code Pink. Kelly’s repurposed bus shelters employ slogans from the WSP, cartographies of military expansion in the California desert, and a Doomsday Clock. With the second hand at two minutes until midnight, it marks the closest point to catastrophe since the arms race began in 1953
End the arms race not the human race, 2019
Duratrans print in lightbox
67 7/8 by 45 3/8 by 2 3/4 in. 172.4 by 115.3 by 7 cm.
We don't want to set the world on fire, 2019
Duratrans print in lightbox
67 7/8 by 45 3/8 by 2 3/4 in. 172.4 by 115.3 by 7 cm.
Peace is the only shelter, 2019
Duratrans print in lightbox
67 7/8 by 45 3/8 by 2 3/4 in. 172.4 by 115.3 by 7 cm.