Invisible-5 Audio Project Looks for Environmental Justice along California’s I-5 Corridor

Published June 29, 2011 Features, Topos 01 - Land/Property
James David Morgan

Invisible-5 Audio Project Looks for Environmental Justice along California’s I-5 Corridor

(Jules Rochielle curates the Social Practices Art Network newsfeed, and shares works and artist opportunities with Groundswell.)

invisible 5 Invisible 5 Audio Project Looks for Environmental Justice along Californias I 5 Corridor

Invisible-5 (2006) investigates the stories of people and communities fighting for environmental justice along the I-5 corridor, in California’s San Fernando Valley, through oral histories, field recordings, found sound, recorded music, and archival audio documents. The project also traces natural, social, and economic histories along the route.

invisible 5 san fernando valley Invisible 5 Audio Project Looks for Environmental Justice along Californias I 5 Corridor
LANDSAT Image of the San Fernando Valley, facing north towards Pacoima, showing the perimeter of the North Hollywood (Area 1) groundwater contamination Superfund zone. North Hollywood is one of four areas of groundwater contamination within the San Fernando Valley Basin, and consists of two parts, the North Hollywood Operable Unit (OU) and the Burbank OU.

I-5 is an important pathway for residents, migrants, shippers, and more, as well as the nonhuman life that copes with its impact. The high speed artery connects Los Angeles with San Francisco, and is an Intermodal Corridor of Economic Significance, to use the state’s term, codified under California law as a vital resource for national and international trade. Given the high traffic along the route, and the industries that call it home, the lenght of I-5 is highly contaminated with pollutants.

Often, there is little to see, smell, or taste of the mostly invisible pollutants: benzene and perchlorate in the water, dioxin and PM2.5 in the air. For residents along the I-5 corridor, often these manifest as just a hazy sky, a faint odor, or the sense that something tastes different about the water. . . And the movement of traffic along the I-5 itself creates a river of moving air, where sprayed pesticides mix with diesel emissions, creating a moving stream dense with small particulate matter.

The work takes the form of four CDs, downloadable as MP3s, to guide the listener along the highway landscape as though they were on a museum audio tour. Mixing elements of critical tourism, sonic experiment, audio documentary, and investigative journalism, Invisible-5 is a collaboration between three artists and two organizations. The collaborators on Invisible-5 are artists Amy Balkin and Kim Stringfellow, audio lead Tim Halbur, and organizations Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, and Pond: Art, activism, and ideas.

Invisible-5 was included in the exhibition JUST SPACE(S) at LACE, Los Angeles in fall 2007, organized by Ava Bromberg and Nicholas Brown, and in Citizen Artists Making Emphatic Arguments at Casa de Tunel, Tijuana, in 2008.