"Snail Trail" added to RAiR compound

Victor Yañez-Lazcano (RAiR 2022-23) was looking for a way to get out of the studio and find another place to connect with his thoughts when he came upon the idea of cutting a trail on the land on the RAiR compound.

“I was noticing the abundance of snails and how they served as a kind of marker for time of the year. And then I started to think about how their movement was like a different experience of time, and felt like it aligned with what I was feeling being here, and what I had felt as I have navigated this art career. And then it finally hit me, maybe I could do something for myself and for the artists at the residency. So I decided to write a proposal in which I would create a trail for myself and the other artists to walk on that would give us time and space to disconnect from the studio and any stresses that we might be feeling, and kind of get out of our heads a little bit, to just experience the land.”

“And so I photographed the dried glistening (snail) trails that were on the sidewalks, and I superimposed them onto an aerial photograph of the property. And then I kind of traced them, not exactly, but followed them as best I could.”

He used construction string to mark the trail and began cutting it with a manual weed cutter, being careful to avoid cacti and cut only grass. He cut 250 feet of the path at a time “and then I would stop and I'd come back the next day and then do another 250 feet until it created a full loop. I also didn't want to be destructive in a way that would make it permanent, so that if people chose not to walk, that it would just grow back. And it's doing just that. So a lot of the grasses are starting to come back and it kind of makes me smile, like, oh, cool, this will go away one day. Maybe.”

This drone photo shows the snail trail meandering in a loop just to the west of the buildings on the RAiR compound.