my voyage to sun tunnels is in my top ten things i’ve ever done. three hours west of salt lake city, i left at 3am to arrive for sunrise. on my drive, i could feel the salt flats all around me, but couldn’t see anything in the darkness. i wove in and out of nevada and back into utah. once i left the paved road, i briefly wondered if i would be able to find nancy holt’s installation. then, suddenly, i saw their hulking silhouettes in the desert landscape. i rolled the car to a stop and stepped out, instantly shivering. i hadn’t thought that it would be so cold.
i watched the sun rise while i circled the two pairs of concrete cylinders, until i was so frozen my legs felt heavy. i get back in the car to warm up and stared at the tunnels, as if i needed to keep an eye on them or they’d get away from me. as the sun rose, the colors of the muted materials changed with the light. i was awestruck.
nancy holt completed sun tunnels in 1976, on 40 acres she purchased in the great basin desert. from DIA: “as holt articulated in 1977: ;the idea for sun tunnels became clear to me while i was in the desert watching the sun rising and setting, keeping the time of the earth. sun tunnels can exist only in that particular place—the work evolved out of its site.; composed of four concrete cylinders that are 18 feet in length and 9 feet in diameter, sun tunnels is arranged in an open cross format and aligned to frame the sun on the horizon during the summer and winter solstices. each tunnel is perforated by a series of holes corresponding to stars in various constellations—capricorn, columba, draco, and perseus—so that shadows cast by the sun through these small apertures into each tube trace the earth’s rotation. the work centers holt’s interest in perception and involves a focus on time—sculpting the sun’s light through the interplay of land and sky, and celestial shifts from day to night.”
minerology