Double Negative,
The Art Newspaper reports. Visitors to the work, which consists of two fifty-foot-deep trenches spanning a remote natural canyon, would be greeted by the sight of the Battle Born Solar Project, which is slated to occupy some 9,000 acres atop the nearby Mormon Mesa.
“We have been told there would still be access to
Double Negative, but the power of the place would be lost forever,” says Lisa Childs, founder of the grassroots initiative Save Our Mesa, which is additionally protesting the development on the grounds that it would encroach on proximate archaeological sites and endanger local wildlife such as the desert tortoise. “Thousands of visitors flock to the Mormon Mesa each year. We are not against renewable energy but we feel it needs to be placed more responsibly.”
The north trench of Michael Heizer’s Double Negative, one of two 30ft-wide, 50ft-deep trenches created on the Mormon Mesa in 1969 Photo: Thure Johnson
A planned solar power plant on the Mormon Mesa near Overton, Nevada could affect the viewing of Michael Heizer’s monumental
Double Negative (1969) a land art installation of two 50 ft-deep trenches dug across a natural canyon on the eastern end of the remote desert site.
The Battle Born Solar Project under development by the California-based renewable energy company Arevia Power is estimated to cost $1bn and cover around 9,000 acres of the Mormon Mesa, which spans around 150,000 acres.