Landfall presents fifteen 12” picture discs depicting satellite images of retired hurricanes with audio recordings of eyewitnesses, storm chasers, forecasters, and the hurricanes themselves. The effect of the spinning records is to collapse the distance between the lofty, weightless gaze of the satellite and the tense, endangered predicament of eyewitnesses on the ground.

Each year, the World Meteorological Organization sets the names of upcoming hurricanes in advance. For Atlantic hurricanes, a list of male and female names are used on a six-year rotation. When a storm is so deadly that the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate, the name is retired, never to be used again.

The record number of North Atlantic hurricanes in recent years has been attributed to man-made climate change. Yet the hurricane represents a critical node in the relationship between Heaven and Earth, between man and God. The English word ‘hurricane’ comes from the Taino word ‘huricán’, the Carib Indian god of evil. Its devastating, uncontrollable force leaves us both mesmerized and terrorized.