The Burning House

Until it reached into our lives and destroyed the tranquility that we had is an episodic publication that charts and reflects upon a network of choreography and action in western Arkansas. Gestures made in the Ouchita National Forest, on runways both active and bygone, and from 10,000 feet in the air were conceived to access, activate, and shed light on specific sites connected to a clandestine network of historical events involving the CIA, Barry Seal, then-Governor Bill Clinton, and myriad other personages.

Over the course of the book’s four segments—each produced and distributed at separate intervals and locations over the course of 8 months—a specialized crew of local and national contributors emerge, including an aviator, an elite NCAA athlete, a contractor and Mena native, as well as a seminal activist and former Green Party Senate candidate. Their contributions, combined with the improvisational outcomes of intense (sometimes risky) physical and research-based exploration, result in a vortex of original photographs, drawings, and essays that poignantly contemplate Len Bias, Demeter, the CIA, and national memory all at the same time.

Until it reached into out lives and destroyed the tranquility that we had involved indispensable contributions and support from Eryka Dellenbach, Ileana Selejan, Chris Lee, Austen Dalquist, Joshua Stipe, Fred Ogden, the University of Arkansas Humanities Steering Committee, and several individuals who wish to remain unnamed.